金毛犼 He Is My Golden Haired Hou
行者道：「這怪是何來歷，敢勞金身下降收之？」菩薩道：「他是我跨的個金毛犼。因牧童盹睡，失於防守，這孽畜咬斷鐵索走來，卻與朱紫國王消災也。」行者道：「这怪是何来历，敢劳金身下降收之？」菩萨道：「他是我跨的个金毛犼。因牧童盹睡，失于防守，这孽畜咬断铁索走来，却与朱紫国王消灾也。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "What is this fiend's history, that it should trouble your golden body to come down and take him?"
降 is jiàng, to come down from above — the reading for descents and decrees. 來歷 is antecedents, where a creature has come from: the same word the fiend used about Wukong.
The Bodhisattva said, "He is the golden-haired hou that I ride.
犼 is a hǒu, the lion-like beast Guanyin is shown riding — and it is the creature named in this chapter's own title. The fiend king has been her mount all along.
"Because the herd-boy dozed off and let his guard down,
盹 is dǔn, to nod off — the same word used of the maid drugged with a sleep bug earlier in the chapter. Two people fall asleep on duty in this story and both of them lose something.
"this cursed beast bit through his iron chain and came here — and in doing so has been dispelling a calamity for the king of Purpuria."
畜 is chù, a beast, not the xù of rearing one. 消災 is to dispel a disaster, and it is the character the whole theological argument of this chapter turns on.
The reveal is delivered in twelve characters and it recasts the entire chapter. The monster king who stole a queen, kept an army and beat a vanguard is Guanyin's riding animal, escaped from its tether. He is named in the chapter title — 行者假名降怪犼 — so the reader has known the word since the first page without necessarily knowing what it meant.
The escape is nobody's fault in particular. A herd-boy dozed off. 盹 is the same character used of Chunjiao when the sleep bug went up her nose, and the parallel is quiet but exact: both times someone falls asleep on duty and something valuable walks out of the door.
Then the last five characters turn the story upside down. 卻與朱紫國王消災也 — and in doing so has been dispelling a calamity for the king. Everything the fiend has done, up to and including the abduction, is about to be described as a service. Wukong's objection is the next passage.