九色蓮花座 On The Nine Coloured Lotus Throne
那宮門立著一個穿霓帔的仙童，忽見孫大聖，即入宮報道：「爺爺，外面是鬧天宮的齊天大聖來了。」太乙救苦天尊聽得，即喚侍衛眾仙迎接。迎至宮中，只見天尊高坐九色蓮花座上，百億瑞光之中。見了行者，下座來相見。行者朝上施禮。天尊答禮道：「大聖，這幾年不見，前聞得你棄道歸佛，保唐僧西天取經，想是功行完了？」行者道：「功行未完，卻也將近。但如今因保唐僧到玉華州，蒙王子遣三子拜老孫等為師，習學武藝，把我們三件神兵照樣打造，不期夜間被賊偷去。那宫门立着一个穿霓帔的仙童，忽见孙大圣，即入宫报道：「爷爷，外面是闹天宫的齐天大圣来了。」太乙救苦天尊听得，即唤侍卫众仙迎接。迎至宫中，只见天尊高坐九色莲花座上，百亿瑞光之中。见了行者，下座来相见。行者朝上施礼。天尊答礼道：「大圣，这几年不见，前闻得你弃道归佛，保唐僧西天取经，想是功行完了？」行者道：「功行未完，却也将近。但如今因保唐僧到玉华州，蒙王子遣三子拜老孙等为师，习学武艺，把我们三件神兵照样打造，不期夜间被贼偷去。
逐句解 Line by line
At the gate of that palace stood an immortal lad in a rainbow cape, who caught sight of the Great Sage and went straight in to report: "Grandfather, outside is the Great Sage Equal to Heaven who made havoc in the heavenly palace!"
The doorkeeper does not announce a visitor, he announces a reputation. 鬧天宮 - made havoc in the heavenly palace - is what this character is still known for five hundred years and eighty chapters later, and the lad leads with it. 著 is zhe, the standing-and-staying reading. 霓帔 is a cape the colour of a secondary rainbow.
The Heavenly Worthy Taiyi Who Relieves Suffering heard it, and at once called his attendant immortals to go and receive him.
得 is dé inside 聽得, where it heads a predication of its own - hearing as a completed event, not a link to something else. The god sends a formal reception party rather than coming himself, which is protocol, and he is about to break it.
They received him into the palace, where he saw the Heavenly Worthy seated high on a nine-coloured lotus throne, in the midst of a hundred million auspicious rays.
The number nine appears again, and by now the chapter is doing it on purpose. The god sits on a nine-coloured lotus; his missing mount has nine heads; the cave is Nine-Bends; the title is Nine-Spirit. 蓮花座 is the lotus throne familiar from any Buddhist or Daoist image, the seat that grows out of mud and is not stained by it.
Seeing Pilgrim, he came down from the throne to meet him.
Six characters, and they are the courtesy of the passage. A Heavenly Worthy leaving his seat to greet a monkey is a considerable gesture, and the novel reports it without any comment at all.
Pilgrim made his bow towards the throne.
Five characters answering six. The exchange of courtesies is being counted out carefully - the god descends, the monkey bows upward, and neither is put below the other.
The Heavenly Worthy returned the bow and said: "Great Sage, I have not seen you these several years. I heard some while ago that you had forsaken the Way and turned to the Buddha, and were escorting the Tang Monk to fetch scriptures in the west - I suppose the work is finished by now?"
A remark with an edge under the courtesy. 棄道歸佛 - abandoning the Way and going over to the Buddha - is being said by a Daoist deity to a former Daoist adept, and Pilgrim's whole early training was under a Daoist master. 功行 is the accumulated merit of practice, the ledger of a religious career.
Pilgrim said: "The work is not finished, though it is getting near.
將近 keeps 將 on jiāng rather than the general-of-rank reading this chapter also uses - here it is the adverb meaning nearly, about to. They are at chapter ninety of a hundred, and this is the novel checking its own watch.
"But just now, escorting the Tang Monk as far as Yuhua Prefecture, we were shown favour by the prince, who sent his three sons to bow to old Monkey and his brothers as masters and study the martial arts; and they had our three divine weapons copied and forged to the pattern - and quite unexpectedly they were stolen away in the night by a thief."
He gives the god the same summary he gave the Heavenly King at the gate, and again 為 is wéi in bowing to them and so making them masters. The whole disaster still comes out of that one verb. 照樣打造 - forged to the pattern - is the copying that started it.
The reception is a small masterpiece of protocol. A doorkeeper announces Pilgrim by his criminal record rather than his name. The god sends attendants, which is correct, and then comes down off his throne anyway, which is generous. Pilgrim bows upward. The god bows back. Nobody has been placed above anybody.
Then the pleasantry with the blade in it. This is a Daoist Heavenly Worthy remarking that he hears Pilgrim has given up the Way for the Buddha - said to a creature whose immortality, cloud-somersault and seventy-two transformations were all learned from a Daoist master in the second chapter of the book. It is perfectly polite and it is not quite nothing.
And the number keeps arriving. A nine-coloured lotus throne, in a chapter about a nine-headed lion in a nine-bends cave, whose title is Nine-Spirit. The novel has never once explained the pattern and has now placed the god and the beast on the same numeral.