如來回靈山 The Tathāgata Returns to Thunderclap
這一篇詞，名《蘇武慢》。話表我佛如來辭別了玉帝，回至雷音寶剎。但見那三千諸佛、五百阿羅、八大金剛、無邊菩薩，一個個都執著幢幡寶蓋、異寶仙花，擺列在靈山仙境娑羅雙林之下接迎。如來駕住祥雲，對眾道：「我以甚深般若，遍觀三界。根本性原，畢竟寂滅。同虛空相，一無所有。殄伏乖猴，是事莫識。名生死始，法相如是。」說罷，放舍利之光，滿空有白虹四十二道，南北通連。大眾見了，皈身禮拜。少頃間，聚慶雲彩霧，登上品蓮臺，端然坐下。这一篇词，名《苏武慢》。话表我佛如来辞别了玉帝，回至雷音宝刹。但见那三千诸佛、五百阿罗、八大金刚、无边菩萨，一个个都执著幢幡宝盖、异宝仙花，摆列在灵山仙境娑罗双林之下接迎。如来驾住祥云，对众道：「我以甚深般若，遍观三界。根本性原，毕竟寂灭。同虚空相，一无所有。殄伏乖猴，是事莫识。名生死始，法相如是。」说罢，放舍利之光，满空有白虹四十二道，南北通连。大众见了，皈身礼拜。少顷间，聚庆云彩雾，登上品莲台，端然坐下。
逐句解 Line by line
This lyric is titled “Su Wu Slow.”
A formulaic naming-tag closing the verse and rejoining the prose narration.
Our story tells how our Buddha, the Tathāgata, took his leave of the Jade Emperor and returned to the Thunderclap Treasure Monastery.
話表 is the storyteller's resumptive formula. 雷音寶剎 — the Thunderclap Monastery on Vulture Peak; 剎 is read chà (Skt. kṣetra, a sacred precinct), not shā.
There he beheld three thousand buddhas, five hundred arhats, eight great vajra-warriors and boundless bodhisattvas, each one holding banners, pennants and jewelled canopies, rare gems and immortal flowers, ranged beneath the twin sāla trees of the Spirit Mountain's fairyland to receive him.
阿羅 abbreviates 阿羅漢 (arhat). 娑羅雙林 are the paired sāla trees, an Indian Buddhist emblem. 執著 here is plain holding, with 著 as durative zhe, not the doctrinal “attachment.”
The Tathāgata, halting his auspicious cloud, addressed the assembly:
“With the most profound prajñā I have surveyed the three realms entire.
般若 = bōrě (Skt. prajñā, transcendent wisdom), a fixed Buddhist reading that overrides the ordinary bānruò. 三界 are the realms of desire, form and formlessness.
Their root-nature is, in the last analysis, quiescent extinction.
寂滅 renders nirvāṇa as the cessation of all conditioned arising.
Like the aspect of empty space, it is wholly without anything at all.
相 = xiàng, “aspect/mark” (lakṣaṇa). 一無所有 — the intensifying 一 takes second-tone sandhi (yì) before 無.
The subduing of the unruly monkey — this is a matter none can comprehend.
殄伏 — to exterminate and subjugate. The Buddha frames the monkey's defeat as something that exceeds the assembly's understanding.
It is named the origin of birth-and-death; the marks of the dharmas are just so.”
法相 = fǎxiàng (dharma-lakṣaṇa), the characteristics of phenomena; 相 is again xiàng.
Having spoken, he released the light of the śarīra; the sky filled with forty-two white rainbows linking north to south.
舍利 (śarīra) are the relic-jewels of a buddha, here a radiance issuing from his very being.
Seeing this, the great assembly bowed their bodies in worship.
皈身 — to give the body over in reverent submission.
In a short while, gathering auspicious clouds and coloured mists, he ascended the highest lotus throne and sat down composed.
上品蓮臺 — the lotus seat of the highest grade, the throne of a buddha. 少頃 = shǎoqǐng, a brief moment.
The Buddha re-enters his own realm and at once delivers a compressed Mahāyāna discourse. His four-character cadences — 根本性原，畢竟寂滅；同虛空相，一無所有 — read like a prajñāpāramitā gloss on the action just past: the monkey's rampage, seen from the absolute, is empty of own-being, neither real nor finally consequential.
Crucially, the Buddha names the monkey's subjugation 名生死始, “the origin of birth-and-death.” The phrase folds the slapstick of Heaven's wrecking into the novel's larger soteriological frame: what looks like punishment is the first turn of a wheel whose end is release. The 舍利 light flooding the sky marks the shift in register from cosmic farce to sacred ground.
The forty-two rainbows and the highest lotus throne stage the Buddha's authority visually before the doctrinal work of the chapter begins. Yu notes how such epiphanic set-pieces punctuate the novel's structure; here the display prepares the reader to take seriously the great commission — the transmission of scripture eastward — that the next scenes will unfold.