竭誠掃塔 A Prayer Before The Sweeping
兩人各持一把，先到大殿上，點起琉璃燈，燒了香，佛前拜道：「弟子陳玄奘奉東土大唐差往靈山參見我佛如來取經，今至祭賽國金光寺，遇本僧言寶塔被污，國王疑僧盜寶，啣冤取罪，上下難明。弟子竭誠掃塔，望我佛威靈，早示污塔之原因，莫致凡夫之冤屈。」祝罷，與行者開了塔門，自下層望上而掃。两人各持一把，先到大殿上，点起琉璃灯，烧了香，佛前拜道：「弟子陈玄奘奉东土大唐差往灵山参见我佛如来取经，今至祭赛国金光寺，遇本僧言宝塔被污，国王疑僧盗宝，啣冤取罪，上下难明。弟子竭诚扫塔，望我佛威灵，早示污塔之原因，莫致凡夫之冤屈。」祝罢，与行者开了塔门，自下层望上而扫。
逐句解 Line by line
The two of them took a broom apiece, went first to the great hall, lit the glazed lamp, burned incense, and bowed before the Buddha, saying: "Your disciple Chen Xuanzang, sent by the Great Tang in the Land of the East to Vulture Peak to have audience of our Buddha the Tathagata and fetch the scriptures, is come today to the Temple of Golden Light in the Kingdom of Sacrificial Offerings, and hears from the monks here that the precious pagoda has been fouled, that the king suspects them of stealing its treasure, and that they bear a wrong and are sentenced for it, with neither above nor below able to make it clear.
琉璃 stands three times across this stretch and the three make a sequence. Here it is the glazed lamp being lit in the hall; then it is the tower of five-coloured glass the poem is about to name; then it is the glazed lamps on every storey of that tower, which the poem will report dusty and unlit. 差往 takes the sent-somewhere chāi, against the chā of 差池 two segments back.
"Your disciple will sweep the pagoda with all his heart. May the awful power of our Buddha show early the cause of the fouling, and let no ordinary man bear a wrong."
竭誠 is to use up your whole sincerity, and it is the word that turns the sweeping into an offering rather than a chore. Notice what he actually asks for: 早示…之原因, show the cause, and soon. Information — the same thing he told the monks he needed before he could speak to the king.
The prayer done, he and Pilgrim opened the pagoda door and swept from the lowest storey upward.
祝罷 takes 罷 as the verb bà, having finished. 自下層望上而掃 states the working method exactly: start at the bottom and go up. That is why the chapter is able to count storeys later.
The prayer is a legal document as much as a devotion. It gives the petitioner's name and commission, the authority he travels under, where he is standing, the facts as reported to him, and the relief he is asking for. Tripitaka has spent the afternoon saying he cannot lay the case before the king because it is not clear. Unable to memorialise the throne, he memorialises the Buddha.
The giveaway is 上下難明, neither above nor below able to make it clear. That is a phrase out of the language of administration, and dropping it into a prayer says quietly what the whole chapter has been showing: the ordinary channels have failed, and something else is being applied to.
Then the two of them open a door and start sweeping at the bottom. The novel gives the method in nine characters and says nothing at all about the oddity of the arrangement — a Buddha petitioned and a floor swept by the same man in the same minute.