出榜招醫 A Proclamation Calling For Physicians
國王聞言,喜道:「寡人久病,不曾登基。今上殿出榜招醫,就有高僧來國。」即傳旨宣至階下。国王闻言,喜道:「寡人久病,不曾登基。今上殿出榜招医,就有高僧来国。」即传旨宣至阶下。
逐句解 Line by line
The king, hearing this, said with pleasure, "I have been long sick and have not sat upon the throne.
寡人 — the solitary one — is the humble way a ruler refers to himself, and its literal sense is doing more work here than usual.
"Today I come up to the hall to publish a notice calling for physicians, and at once an eminent monk arrives in my kingdom."
招醫, to summon a physician, is the first appearance in the chapter of the business that will occupy the whole rest of it.
He gave order at once that the monk be summoned to the foot of the steps.
傳旨 is to pass down a decree — the machinery by which a king's spoken wish becomes an instruction somebody has to carry out.
The king's pleasure is not at the monk but at the timing. He has been ill so long that he stopped holding court; on the one day he rouses himself to ask for help, help walks in at the gate. He reads it as an omen, and he is not wrong to.
What he does not say — and what the reader knows and Tripitaka does not — is that the notice and the visitor have nothing whatever to do with each other. The pilgrims came about a document.
Three sentences, and the audience is granted before Tripitaka has said a word.