枉死城中 The City of the Wrongly Dead
那枉死城中,無限的冤魂,卻不大失所望,永世不得超生,一場功果,盡化作風塵,這卻怎麼得乾淨也?」那枉死城中,无限的冤魂,却不大失所望,永世不得超生,一场功果,尽化作风尘,这却怎么得干净也?」
逐句解 Line by line
And in that City of the Wrongly Dead, the numberless souls with a grievance — would they not be bitterly disappointed, never through all the ages to be carried over into rebirth? A whole work of merit turned to dust and wind. How is that to be called clean?"
枉死城 is a real place in the underworld of this tradition, where those who died before their time are held. 場 is cháng, the measure for an episode or an undertaking — a whole one of them. 乾 is gān, and this is the fourth time the word has been used in the scene: the demons meant an empty stomach, and he means a life that leaves nothing owing.
This is the answer to what has a monk to be unclean about, and it is the largest thing Tripitaka says in the chapter. His death is not one man's death; it strands a city of souls who have been waiting.
The word he has been circling lands here. Clean, for him, means having discharged what was entrusted to you — and by that measure dying tied to a tree is filthy.