第八十三回 · 深山喂鹿 Fish Never Hooked Deer Let Live — Journey to the West

原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

深山喂鹿 Fish Never Hooked Deer Let Live

拿ná住zhù時shí，只zhǐ該gāi打dǎ死sǐ，如rú來lái吩fēn咐fu道dào：『積jī水shuǐ養yǎng魚yú終zhōng不bú釣diào，深shēn山shān喂wèi鹿lù望wàng長cháng生shēng。』當dāng時shí饒ráo了le他tā性xìng命mìng。積jī此cǐ恩ēn念niàn，拜bài父fù王wáng為wéi父fù，拜bài孩hái兒ér為wéi兄xiōng，在zài下xià方fāng供gòng設shè牌pái位wèi，侍shì奉fèng香xiāng火huǒ。拿ná住zhù时shí，只zhǐ该gāi打dǎ死sǐ，如rú来lái吩fēn咐fu道dào：『积jī水shuǐ养yǎng鱼yú终zhōng不bú钓diào，深shēn山shān喂wèi鹿lù望wàng长cháng生shēng。』当dāng时shí饶ráo了le他tā性xìng命mìng。积jī此cǐ恩ēn念niàn，拜bài父fù王wáng为wéi父fù，拜bài孩hái儿ér为wéi兄xiōng，在zài下xià方fāng供gòng设shè牌pái位wèi，侍shì奉fèng香xiāng火huǒ。

逐句解 Line by line

拿ná住zhù時shí，只zhǐ該gāi打dǎ死sǐ，如rú來lái吩fēn咐fu道dào：『積jī水shuǐ養yǎng魚yú終zhōng不bú釣diào，深shēn山shān喂wèi鹿lù望wàng長cháng生shēng。』拿ná住zhù时shí，只zhǐ该gāi打dǎ死sǐ，如rú来lái吩fēn咐fu道dào：『积jī水shuǐ养yǎng鱼yú终zhōng不bú钓diào，深shēn山shān喂wèi鹿lù望wàng长cháng生shēng。』

When we had taken her, she ought only to have been put to death, but the Tathagata instructed us: keep water and rear fish and in the end do not angle for them; feed deer in the deep hills and hope for long life.

The Buddha's ruling comes as a proverb rather than a judgement, which is how mercy usually arrives in this book. 積水養魚終不釣 and its partner are a matched pair about keeping a creature alive for its own sake and not for what you might get from it. 長 is cháng here — 長生 is long life, the whole aim of the Daoist project, and not the zhǎng of seniority.

當dāng時shí饒ráo了le他tā性xìng命mìng。当dāng时shí饶ráo了le他tā性xìng命mìng。

So at the time her life was spared.

Seven characters, and the reader now knows the exact price of a piece of mercy three hundred years old. Everything that has gone wrong in this chapter runs back to it.

積jī此cǐ恩ēn念niàn，拜bài父fù王wáng為wéi父fù，拜bài孩hái兒ér為wéi兄xiōng，在zài下xià方fāng供gòng設shè牌pái位wèi，侍shì奉fèng香xiāng火huǒ。积jī此cǐ恩ēn念niàn，拜bài父fù王wáng为wéi父fù，拜bài孩hái儿ér为wéi兄xiōng，在zài下xià方fāng供gòng设shè牌pái位wèi，侍shì奉fèng香xiāng火huǒ。

Out of gratitude for the kindness she bowed to my father as her father and to me as her elder brother, and she set up tablets to us in the world below and kept the incense burning.

Here is the whole case, dissolved in one sentence. Both 為 are wéi, to take as — she took him as a father, which is exactly not the same as being his daughter. 供 is gòng in 供設, to set out offerings, the reading these tablets have carried all chapter. 侍奉香火 is to serve the incense and fire, that is, to maintain a shrine.

總評 Commentary

One distinction answers the whole legal question, and the tablets themselves could never have shown it. She calls him father; she is not his daughter. Every word on the lettering is true and the inference drawn from it was wrong.

It is also a quiet joke at the expense of documentary evidence, which the chapter has treated as decisive for two thousand characters. The document said exactly what it meant and still misled everybody who read it.