錦襴袈裟 Robes For The Audience
不覺的天曉。長老道：「我與悟空入朝，倒換關文去來。」長老即穿了錦襴袈裟，戴了毘盧帽，整束威儀，拽步前進。行者也束一束虎皮裙，整一整綿布直裰，取了關文同去。八戒道：「怎麼不帶這兩個妖賊去？」行者道：「待我們奏過了，自有駕帖著人來提他。」不觉的天晓。长老道：「我与悟空入朝，倒换关文去来。」长老即穿了锦襕袈裟，戴了毘卢帽，整束威仪，拽步前进。行者也束一束虎皮裙，整一整绵布直裰，取了关文同去。八戒道：「怎么不带这两个妖贼去？」行者道：「待我们奏过了，自有驾帖着人来提他。」
逐句解 Line by line
Before they knew it the day had dawned.
Five characters, and they cover the whole night. 不覺 takes jué, unawares — and it stands a few characters away from 睡覺 in the sentence before, where the same character reads jiào.
The elder said, "Wukong and I will go to court and get the travel document exchanged."
倒換關文 comes back from the previous evening, where Tripitaka gave it as his reason for wanting the monks' business cleared up first. It is now cleared up, so the audience can go ahead.
The elder at once put on the brocade-bordered cassock, set the Vairocana crown upon his head, ordered his bearing, and strode forward.
The clothes are not incidental. 錦襴袈裟 is the cassock the Buddha sent by the Bodhisattva's hand for whoever should come to fetch the scriptures, handed over in the eighth chapter — and pairing it with the 毘盧帽, the five-Buddha crown named for Vairocana, is exactly the outfit he puts on in the ninety-eighth chapter to go and receive the scriptures at last. Here he puts it on to see a king. 拽 holds zhuài.
Pilgrim too gave his tiger-skin kilt a hitch, straightened his plain cotton gown, took up the travel document, and went along with him.
The parallel is exact and comic: two clauses of dressing each, and Pilgrim's amount to tightening a skin and pulling a shirt straight. 直裰 is the plain long gown of a monk with no rank at all.
Eight Rules said, "Why not take these two fiend-thieves along?"
The question is sensible, and it comes from the same instinct as his rake the night before: if you have the evidence, produce it. He is overruled on procedure a second time. 不 lifts to bú before the falling tone of 帶.
Pilgrim said, "Wait until we have made our memorial. There will be a warrant then, and men sent to fetch them."
駕帖 is a warrant issued under the sovereign's own authority, and 著人 takes 著 as zhuó, setting men on to a job. Pilgrim wants the prisoners brought in by due process rather than dragged into the palace by four pilgrims.
The whole night passes in five characters and the morning is given over to clothes. Tripitaka dresses in the two things the Buddha's own emissary handed over at the start of the journey, and the novel names them exactly. Pilgrim hitches up a tiger skin.
The instinct behind the delay is the same one that kept the fiends alive. Eight Rules would bring the prisoners along and let the king see them; Pilgrim wants the memorial first and the warrant after, so that the court fetches them by its own authority. He has been running this case as an investigation since the twelfth storey, and he is now running it as a prosecution.