Tripitaka saw him and made his greeting. The monk at once returned it and said, "Master, where have you come from?" Tripitaka said, "Your disciple is Chen Xuanzang. By command of the Great Tang Emperor of the Eastern Land I am dispatched to the Western Heaven, to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures."

差往西天 — dispatched to the Western Heaven. The character 差 here is read chāi, to send on an errand, and it is the word for official deployment. The chapter uses it eleven times, nine of them in this sense; the other two mean wrong or not much different, which is a quite separate word wearing the same character.

Tripitaka gives his lay surname and his religious name together, which is what a monk does on formal introduction. He is being careful — he always is, with strangers who might be officials.

"Passing by your treasured place, I make bold to call, and would borrow a night's lodging. Tomorrow I go on." The monk said, "Our poor mountain is a common endowment of the ten directions. Anyone at all may take his pleasure here."

十方常住 is a real institution and not a piety. The ten directions means everywhere; the endowment is the monastery's permanent property, held not by the monks living there but in trust for any monk from anywhere. A travelling monk had a right to bed and board at such a house.

⚠ The chapter writes this word twice, in two different ways. Here it is 常住; a few lines further on it is 長住, with a character meaning long instead of the one meaning constant. Both are read the same and mean the same thing. Across all hundred chapters of the novel each spelling occurs exactly once, and both are here, eighty-five characters apart.

"How much the more so for an elder, a divine monk of the Eastern Land. If we may but make our offering, we count ourselves most fortunate." Tripitaka thanked him, and at once called his three companions to come along with him.

供養 is making an offering, and in Buddhist usage the giver gains the merit, so the host is thanking the guest for the opportunity. It is not mere politeness — feeding a travelling monk was understood to be worth something to the person doing the feeding.

幸甚 — most fortunate — is formal written language surfacing in speech, which tells you the monk is educated. Everything about him so far is correct.

They passed along the covered walk and by the kitchen, and went straight through to the abbot's quarters. Greetings done, they settled themselves as host and guests, and Pilgrim and the other two sat down as well, hands folded before them.

方丈 is the abbot's quarters — literally a square one zhàng across, from the story of the layman Vimalakirti, whose room was that size and held an assembly of thousands. ⚠ The chapter has this character four times and only one of them is a measurement; the other three, including this one, are the room.

香積 is the monastery kitchen, named after a Buddha whose fragrance was itself the food. Even the back offices of a temple are named out of scripture.

亦垂手坐了 — they sat with their hands hanging respectfully. For once all three disciples are behaving, and it lasts about a page.