原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
沿山打劫 Bandits Shelter Here in Rain
道人笑道：「老爺，這山中多有妖邪強寇，天色清明，沿山打劫，天陰就來寺裡藏身，被他把佛像推倒墊坐，木植搬來燒火。道人笑道：「老爷，这山中多有妖邪强寇，天色清明，沿山打劫，天阴就来寺里藏身，被他把佛像推倒垫坐，木植搬来烧火。
逐句解 Line by line
道人笑道：「老爺，這山中多有妖邪強寇，天色清明，沿山打劫，天陰就來寺裡藏身，被他把佛像推倒墊坐，木植搬來燒火。
道人笑道：「老爷，这山中多有妖邪强寇，天色清明，沿山打劫，天阴就来寺里藏身，被他把佛像推倒垫坐，木植搬来烧火。
The attendant laughed and said, "Sir, there are a great many fiends and strong robbers in these mountains. When the weather is clear they go along the hills robbing, and when it clouds over they come into the monastery to shelter, and they have pushed the images over to sit on and carried off the timber to burn."
倒 is dǎo, toppled — the same word the rhapsody used of the fallen arhats, and here we learn who put them on the floor. Note the practicality of it: a wooden statue is a seat and a beam is firewood.
The answer is entirely mundane and rather devastating. The Buddha's golden body lost its colour because men sat on it, and the timbers went because it rained and somebody wanted a fire.
The book has just spent nine lines of verse on the pathos of that ruin, with wind splitting the guardian's face and rain wearing away the Buddha's head. Now a caretaker explains in one sentence that the weather had very little to do with it.