夜放霞光 The Pagoda Shone By Night
三藏道：「既拜為上邦，想是你這國王有道，文武賢良。」眾僧道：「爺爺，文也不賢，武也不良，國君也不是有道。我這金光寺，自來寶塔上祥雲籠罩，瑞靄高升：夜放霞光？萬里有人曾見；晝噴彩氣，四國無不同瞻。故此以為天府神京，四夷朝貢。三藏道：「既拜为上邦，想是你这国王有道，文武贤良。」众僧道：「爷爷，文也不贤，武也不良，国君也不是有道。我这金光寺，自来宝塔上祥云笼罩，瑞霭高升：夜放霞光？万里有人曾见；昼喷彩气，四国无不同瞻。故此以为天府神京，四夷朝贡。
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka said, "Since they acknowledged you their sovereign state, I suppose this king of yours possesses the Way, and that his civil and military officers are worthy and good."
有道, possessing the Way, is the standard formula for a ruler whose title is sound. Tripitaka is arguing backwards from effect to cause — tribute implies virtue — which is orthodox, and which the next speech says is wrong here.
The monks said, "Your Reverence, the civil officers are not worthy, the military are not good, and the sovereign does not possess the Way either.
Three denials in a row, each contradicting one clause of what Tripitaka has just said, in the order he said it. The 不 before 是 lifts to bú while the two before 賢 and 良 stay bù, and the three sit close enough together for the difference to be audible.
"It is that this Temple of Golden Light of ours has always had auspicious cloud wrapped about its precious pagoda and lucky vapour rising high from it: by night it gave off a rosy light that men ten thousand lǐ away had seen, and by day it breathed coloured air, and all four states alike looked upon it.
The 世德堂本 prints a question mark after 夜放霞光, and it cannot be right: the sentence is a matched pair — night against day, distance against breadth — and the mark is standing where a comma belongs. The characters are kept exactly as printed, and only the segmenting has been repaired, so that the couplet is not cut in half.
"For that reason they took this for the storehouse of heaven and the holy capital, and the four tribes came to court with tribute."
天府神京 picks up 天府瑤京 from the rhapsody at the city gate almost exactly, with one character changed. The poem had asserted it of the city; the monks now explain that the whole claim rested on a light coming off one building.
Tripitaka's inference is the reasonable one and it is refuted flatly. Tribute did not follow from virtue here; it followed from a light. The kingdom's standing among its neighbours rested on a visible marvel, and the marvel sat on top of a Buddhist pagoda the state had built and then, as the chapter has already shown, stopped looking after.
That reframes everything the poem said at the gate. The metropolis of the sacred land, the storehouse of heaven, the four tribes folding their hands — all of it was downstream of the golden light, and the monks use the poem's own phrase to say so.
The couplet describing the light is also the most damaged sentence in the chapter as it stands printed, cut in half by a question mark where a comma belongs. A small reminder that the edition being followed here is a Ming block print and not a modern critical text.