赤腳獻梨 The Barefoot Immortal
如來忻然領謝。壽星得座，依然走斝傳觴。只見赤腳大仙又至，向玉帝前頫顖，禮畢，又對佛祖謝道：「深感法力，降伏妖猴。無物可以表敬，特具交梨二顆、火棗數枚奉獻。」詩曰：如来忻然领谢。寿星得座，依然走斝传觞。只见赤脚大仙又至，向玉帝前𫖯顖，礼毕，又对佛祖谢道：「深感法力，降伏妖猴。无物可以表敬，特具交梨二颗、火枣数枚奉献。」诗曰：
逐句解 Line by line
The Tathāgata gladly accepted the thanks. The Star of Longevity took his seat, and again the wine-cups went round. Then the Barefoot Immortal arrived, bowed his head before the Jade Emperor, completed his obeisance, and turning to the Buddha gave thanks, saying:
忻然 (xīn rán), gladly. 赤腳大仙 (Chì jiǎo dà xiān), the Barefoot Immortal. 頫顖: 頫 = fǔ (to bow the head), 顖 = xìn (the crown/fontanelle) — "to bow the head [to the ground]." Astral note: the simplified conversion of 頫 (U+982B) produces the Extension-B graph 𫖯 (U+2B5AF); see the carry-forward flag.
"I deeply feel your Dharma-power in subduing the fiendish monkey. Having nothing worthy to show my respect, I bring only two crossed-pears and several fire-dates to present." The poem says:
降伏: 降 = xiáng (to subdue). 交梨、火棗 (jiāo lí, huǒ zǎo) — "crossed-pear and fire-date," legendary fruits of Daoist immortality, traditionally paired. The verse lead-in 詩曰 rides the end of this prose segment.
The Barefoot Immortal's dates and pears are fragrant; reverently offered to Amitābha, that his reckoned years be long.
彌陀 (Mí tuó) — Amitābha, here as an honorific for the Buddha. 壽算長: 長 = cháng ("the reckoned lifespan long"). The gift-poem again wishes the Buddha length of days, the banquet's recurring blessing.
His Seven-Jewel Lotus Dais, steady as a mountain; his thousand-gold flower-throne, adorned like brocade.
七寶蓮臺, the Seven-Jewel Lotus Dais — the Buddha's throne. The couplet praises its stability ("steady as a mountain," 山樣穩) — a quiet echo of the Five-Phases Mountain that now steadies the monkey: the Buddha sits immovable as the mountain he made.
His years equal to heaven and earth — the words are no falsehood; his fortune likened to the vast waves — the saying is no boast.
言非謬…話豈狂, "no falsehood… no wild boast" — the poem insists its hyperbole is literal truth. The contrast with the monkey is exact: his boast-poem (該讓我…敢爭先) was wild presumption; the Buddha's praises, the verse claims, merely state fact.
His fortune and long life fulfilled as appointed — truly it is the pure, idle, utmost bliss of that Western land.
極樂: 樂 = lè — Sukhāvatī, the Western Pure Land of "Ultimate Bliss." 那西方: 那 = nà (demonstrative, "that Western [land]"). The gift-poem closes by naming the Buddha's home as the Pure Land itself, the banquet's final word of praise before the seal is set.
The Barefoot Immortal completes the trio of great guests, bringing the legendary paired fruits of Daoist immortality — the 交梨 (crossed-pear) and 火棗 (fire-date). His gift-poem follows the established pattern: a Daoist deity praising the Buddha, here addressed as 彌陀 (Amitābha) and located in 極樂 (Sukhāvatī, the Western Pure Land).
Two images in the poem quietly rhyme with the chapter's central act. The Buddha's lotus-throne is "steady as a mountain" (山樣穩) — and it is a mountain, the Five-Phases Mountain, that the Buddha has just set upon the monkey; the deliverer sits as immovable as the prison he made. And the poem's insistence that its praises are "no falsehood, no wild boast" (言非謬…話豈狂) points back, by contrast, to the monkey's boast-poem, whose claims were precisely the 狂 (wildness) the Buddha rebuked. Praise that is true measures itself against boasting that was not.
A textual note on the simplified rendering. The source's graph 頫 (U+982B, "to bow the head," in 頫顖) is a BMP character, so the traditional text remains free of astral codepoints. But OpenCC's traditional-to-simplified conversion maps it deterministically to 𫖯 (U+2B5AF), a CJK Extension-B character. The mapping round-trips cleanly, and per our astral protocol we encode exactly what the conversion genuinely produces rather than substitute a look-alike. The simplified view will therefore require Extension-B font coverage at this point; the traditional view is unaffected.