觀音請行 Guanyin Offers to Go
當有觀音菩薩行近蓮臺，禮佛三匝道：「弟子不才，願上東土尋一個取經人來也。」諸眾擡頭觀看，那菩薩：当有观音菩萨行近莲台，礼佛三匝道：「弟子不才，愿上东土寻一个取经人来也。」诸众抬头观看，那菩萨：
逐句解 Line by line
Then the Bodhisattva Guanyin drew near the lotus throne and, circling the Buddha thrice in homage, said:
當 is dāng, and 觀 is guān in 觀音. 三匝 is the same three circuits the assembly made at the feast, and the same reverence the Tang court will perform at the scripture platform four chapters from now.
"Your disciple, though of little talent, is willing to go up to the Eastern Land and seek out a scripture-pilgrim."
The volunteering takes one modest sentence — no terms, no conditions, no questions. In 一個 the 一 takes yí before the falling tone of 個.
The whole assembly raised their heads to gaze upon her, that Bodhisattva:
那菩薩, that Bodhisattva, is the storyteller's cue for a full-dress description of her.
Her principle perfect in the Four Virtues, her wisdom filling a golden body.
四德 are the four qualities of buddha-nature: permanence, bliss, selfhood and purity.
Her beaded tassels hang with pearl and kingfisher-green; her fragrant rings are clasped with luminous gems.
纓絡, written here for the usual 瓔珞, is the jewelled collar every bodhisattva wears.
Her dark cloud-tresses deftly coiled in a dragon-knot, her embroidered sashes lightly afloat like phoenix plumes.
The portrait starts at the hair. 盤龍髻 and 彩鳳翎 put dragon and phoenix into the opening couplet, which is where these descriptions nearly always put them.
Green-jade clasp, plain gauze gown, wrapped about in auspicious light;
碧玉紐 and 素羅袍 move from ornament to garment, and then 祥光籠罩 covers both. The light is described as one more layer of clothing over the clothes.
brocade-velvet skirt, golden chain-girdle, veiled in propitious vapor.
落索 is a linked chain worn at the waist.
Her brows like a crescent moon, her eyes like a pair of stars.
小月 for the brows, 雙星 for the eyes. The face is given entirely in sky, which is how the passage tells you she is not merely beautiful but divine.
Her jade face by nature glad, her vermilion lips a single point of red.
In 一點 the 一 takes yì before the dipping tone of 點.
In her pure vase the sweet dew brims year on year; the willow-sprig slanted there is green age upon age.
淨瓶 and 垂楊 — the vase of sweet dew and the willow sprig standing in it. These two objects are how you identify Guanyin in any painting or shrine.
She undoes the Eight Calamities, delivers the host of the living, great in her mercy:
八難 are the eight conditions that stop a being from ever hearing the Dharma: born in a hell, born an animal, born in a heaven so pleasant nobody bothers, and the rest. 難 is read nàn, calamity, not nán, difficult.
And so she guards Mount Tai, dwells in the Southern Sea, rescues from suffering and seeks out the cry — ten thousand prayers, ten thousand answers; a thousand sanctities, a thousand wonders.
救苦尋聲 — rescue from suffering, listen for the sound. The sound is you calling her name. The Lotus Sūtra makes this her standing office, and it is why her name means the one who watches the world's cries.
Her orchid-heart delights in the purple bamboo; her angelica-nature loves the fragrant vine.
紫竹 is the purple bamboo of her island home on Potalaka.
She is the Lady of Mercy upon Mount Potalaka, the living Guanyin within the Tide-Sound Cave.
落伽山 (luò qié) is Potalaka, 伽 read qié; 潮音洞, the Cave of Tidal Sound, is her seat in the Southern Sea.
Guanyin answers the call, and the story stops for the most elaborate set-piece in the chapter, a full 賦 on her person. The volunteering itself gets a single modest sentence. The verse does the real work, fixing her image in the reader's eye before she drops into the action.
It is a catalogue a Ming reader would have recognised at a glance: the jewelled 纓絡, the pure vase and its willow sprig, the purple bamboo, the Tide-Sound Cave. What matters is that it lists her duties along with her ornaments — 解八難，度群生, 救苦尋聲 — so she is defined by what she does for people, which is exactly the quality the southern continent is about to need.
Yu points out how pointed the placement is: Guanyin appears in full splendour at the precise moment she takes on the role she will hold for the rest of the novel, the pilgrimage's standing patron and rescuer. Plaks adds that her elevation here quietly demotes the Daoist heaven of the earlier chapters into a subordinate part of a Buddhist economy of salvation.