玲瓏剔透 A Pagoda Of Openwork Gold
天王無奈,告求我佛如來。如來以和為尚,賜他一座玲瓏剔透舍利子如意黃金寶塔。那塔上層層有佛,豔豔光明。喚哪吒以佛為父,解釋了冤仇。天王无奈,告求我佛如来。如来以和为尚,赐他一座玲珑剔透舍利子如意黄金宝塔。那塔上层层有佛,艳艳光明。唤哪咤以佛为父,解释了冤仇。
逐句解 Line by line
The Heavenly King, having no other course, went and begged our Buddha the Tathagata.
無奈 is with no alternative — the same phrase the Celestial Masters used when they had to let Pilgrim file his plaint. In this novel it is what everybody says just before doing the thing they did not want to do.
The Tathagata, holding that peace is best, gave him a pagoda of yellow gold, openwork and translucent, made of relic-grains and answering to the will.
以和為尚 is to hold harmony as the highest thing, and 為 is wéi, to take as. 玲瓏剔透 is delicate and see-through, still a live compliment for fine workmanship. 舍利子 renders the Sanskrit śarīra, the hard grains found in the ashes of a cremated saint, and 子 takes zǐ because this is a term of art, not a household object. 如意 is as you wish — the pagoda does what its holder wants.
On every tier of that pagoda there were buddhas, in a dazzle of light.
層層 and 豔豔 are both doubled, and the doubling makes the tiers repeat and the light flicker. Chinese does with a repeated syllable what English does with tier upon tier.
He told Nezha to take the Buddha as his father, and the feud was dissolved.
為 is wéi again, to take as — the third time in this passage the same word makes one thing stand in for another. 解釋 here means to dissolve or untie, its older sense; the modern meaning of explaining something grew out of it.
The Buddha's solution is not a judgement. Nobody is found right or wrong; a new father is simply supplied, and the old quarrel has nowhere to attach itself.
The pagoda is the settlement made into an object. Every time the Heavenly King raises it, buddhas look out of it at his son, and the son remembers who his father is now.