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，一个个都执着幢幡宝盖、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."
The storyteller tells you the tune he has just sung to, then gets back to the story.
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 formula a storyteller uses to pick the thread back up: our story tells how. 雷音寶剎 is the Thunderclap Monastery on Vulture Peak, the Buddha's home ground. 剎 is read chà here — from Sanskrit kṣetra, a consecrated 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.
The whole of paradise has turned out to meet him. 阿羅 is short for 阿羅漢, arhat. 娑羅雙林 are the paired sāla trees, an Indian Buddhist emblem. Watch 執著: in Buddhist English that word means attachment, the thing you are supposed to give up, but here it is just people holding things — 著 is the ongoing-action zhe, and they are holding banners.
The Tathāgata, halting his auspicious cloud, addressed the assembly:
駕住祥雲 halts the cloud rather than stepping off it. The Buddha addresses the assembly still airborne, which is how the chapter keeps him above the scene it is about to describe.
"With the most profound prajñā I have surveyed the three realms entire.
He opens with the highest wisdom and the widest survey. 般若 is read bō rě — the fixed Buddhist reading of these two characters, from Sanskrit prajñā, transcendent wisdom — overriding the ordinary bān ruò. 三界 are the three realms: desire, form, and formlessness.
Their root-nature is, in the last analysis, quiescent extinction.
寂滅 is nirvāṇa put as a stopping: nothing conditioned arises any more.
Like the aspect of empty space, it is wholly without anything at all.
相 is xiàng, an aspect or mark — Sanskrit lakṣaṇa. In 一無所有 the 一 is doing intensifying work, not counting, and its tone shifts to yì before 無.
The subduing of the unruly monkey — this is a matter none can comprehend.
殄伏 is to wipe out and hold down. The Buddha files the monkey's defeat under things nobody in the room is equipped to understand — which is exactly the cue for somebody to ask.
It is named the origin of birth-and-death; the marks of the dharmas are just so."
法相 is fǎ xiàng, Sanskrit dharma-lakṣaṇa, the marks by which phenomena show themselves; 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 jewel-like relics left in a buddha's ashes. Here the light comes straight out of him while he is still sitting there.
Seeing this, the great assembly bowed their bodies in worship.
皈身 is to hand the body over — bowing as an act of submission rather than politeness.
In a short while, gathering auspicious clouds and coloured mists, he ascended the highest lotus throne and sat down composed.
上品蓮臺 is the top-grade lotus seat, a buddha's throne. 少頃 is shǎo qǐng, a moment.
The Buddha comes home and immediately gives a compressed Mahāyāna lecture. His four-beat phrases — 根本性原，畢竟寂滅；同虛空相，一無所有 — read like a prajñāpāramitā gloss, a perfection-of-wisdom reading of the action just finished: seen from the absolute, the monkey's rampage has nothing solid in it at all, and was neither real nor finally serious.
Then comes the odd part. He calls the subduing of the monkey 名生死始, the origin of birth-and-death, which folds all that wrecked furniture into the novel's larger scheme. What looks like a punishment is the first turn of a wheel that ends in release. The flood of 舍利 light across the sky marks the change of key, from cosmic farce to holy ground.
Forty-two rainbows and the highest lotus seat establish the Buddha's authority by sight before a word of doctrine is spoken. Yu notes how these blazing set-pieces punctuate the novel's structure; here the display is there to make the reader take seriously the enormous commission — sending scripture east — that the next scenes will hand out.