必有道行 A Monk From Afar Must Have Attainment
及到朝門外，見有黃門官，即施禮道：「貧僧乃東土大唐差往西天取經者。今到貴地，理當倒換關文，意欲見駕，伏乞轉奏轉奏。」那黃門官果為傳奏。國王喜道：「遠來之僧，必有道行。」及到朝门外，见有黄门官，即施礼道：「贫僧乃东土大唐差往西天取经者。今到贵地，理当倒换关文，意欲见驾，伏乞转奏转奏。」那黄门官果为传奏。国王喜道：「远来之僧，必有道行。」
逐句解 Line by line
When they reached the gate of the court and saw the officer of the Yellow Gate, he at once made his bow and said, "This poor monk is one dispatched from the Great Tang in the Land of the East to fetch scriptures in the Western Heaven.
黃門官 huáng mén guān is the palace gate officer, historically a eunuch of the inner court, whose job is to carry messages between the outside world and the throne. 差 is chāi, dispatched on an official errand — six of the chapter's seven take this reading.
"Having now arrived in your honourable land, I ought by rights to have my travel rescript exchanged, and would wish to see the throne. I humbly beg you to report it, to report it."
伏乞 — prostrating, I beg. The repetition at the end is the standard petitioning manner and it is doing what the tripled "there is, there is, there is" did at the city gate: filling the space where an argument would go.
The officer of the Yellow Gate did duly report it.
為 is wèi here — he did it on the monk's behalf. Eight characters, and the machine works.
The king said with pleasure, "A monk come from far off must have attainment."
道行 is dào héng — the depth of somebody's religious cultivation, and by extension their real powers. 行 takes the reading héng only inside this compound; everywhere else in the chapter it is xíng. The king is being courteous, and he is also shopping. A dying man has just been told there is a holy man at the gate.
The audience opens on perfect courtesy and the reader already knows how it ends. Everything in this passage is correct procedure: the petition, the officer, the report, the gracious reply.
The king's one line is beautifully placed. He says a monk from far away must have real attainment, and he means it as a compliment. He is also a man who has spent three years buying every promise of longevity on the market, and who is about to be told that this particular holy man's heart would work better than the children's. The compliment and the appetite are the same sentence.