又名祇園 The Garden Also Called Jetavana
沙僧笑道：「二哥，你不曉的。天下多少斯文，若論起肚子裡來，正替你我一般哩。」八戒方才肯住。三藏念了結齋，左右徹了席面，三藏稱謝。寺僧問起東土來因，三藏說到古跡，才問布金寺名之由。那僧答曰：「這寺原是舍衛國給孤獨園寺，又名祇園。因是給孤獨長者請佛講經，金磚布地，又易今名。我這寺一望之前，乃是舍衛國。沙僧笑道：「二哥，你不晓的。天下多少斯文，若论起肚子里来，正替你我一般哩。」八戒方才肯住。三藏念了结斋，左右彻了席面，三藏称谢。寺僧问起东土来因，三藏说到古迹，才问布金寺名之由。那僧答曰：「这寺原是舍卫国给孤独园寺，又名祇园。因是给孤独长者请佛讲经，金砖布地，又易今名。我这寺一望之前，乃是舍卫国。
逐句解 Line by line
Sha Monk laughed and said, "Second brother, you do not know. There is a great deal of culture in this world, and if you go by what is inside the belly, it is exactly the same as yours and mine." Only then would Eight Rules stop.
Sha Monk turns his brother's joke into a better one. There is plenty of cultivation about, and most of it is as hollow as we are. It is the sharpest thing anybody says in the chapter, and the quietest disciple says it.
肚子 — the belly. The character is the one for stomach, and the reading is dù, not the dǔ that means tripe on a menu.
方才肯住 — only then was he willing to stop. Not persuaded; outmanoeuvred.
Tripitaka said the closing grace, the tables were cleared away on both sides, and Tripitaka gave thanks. The temple monks asked how they had come from the Eastern Land, and Tripitaka, having got as far as the old relics, then asked the reason for the name of Gold-Spread Monastery.
古跡 — old relics, the same word that stood on the hanging board outside. The character is read jì, a trace or a track; the base of the reading system gets this one wrong on its own and it needs correcting wherever it appears.
Note the sequence. Tripitaka does not ask straight out. He tells his own story, works round to antiquities, and only then puts the question. He has been carrying the answer since the gate and wants to hear it confirmed.
That monk answered, "This temple was originally the Garden of the Friendless Monastery of the country of Shravasti, and was also called Jetavana. Because it was here that the Elder Anathapindika invited the Buddha to expound scripture, and gold bricks were spread on the ground, the name was changed again to the one it has now."
There is the confirmation, and Tripitaka was right.
⚠ 祇園 — Jetavana — is written here with one character, and six other times in this chapter with a different one, 祗園, which differs by a single stroke. Both stand for the same Indian name. This is not carelessness peculiar to Chapter 93: across the whole novel the wrong-looking spelling appears twenty-three times and the right-looking one five, and Chapter 98 writes the same scripture title both ways within a few lines.
金磚布地 — gold bricks spread on the ground. Four characters, and the whole story of how the ground was bought.
"Within sight in front of this temple of ours lies the country of Shravasti."
一望之前 — within one look ahead. The monk is saying the ancient city is not a legend somewhere but the next thing over the horizon.
For Tripitaka this is the moment the journey stops being a journey. He has read about Shravasti all his life. It is now within sight.
Everything Tripitaka guessed from a signboard turns out to be true, and the monk confirms it in three sentences without any fuss. That matter-of-factness is the point: to the people who live here, the most famous garden in Buddhism is simply the land the monastery sits on, and the name has changed twice for reasons everyone locally knows.
The garden's name is worth watching closely, because the chapter cannot keep it steady. Jetavana is written one way here and another way six times elsewhere in these same few pages, with two characters that differ by a single stroke and that copyists had been running together for centuries. Our text prints both. There is no reading in which one is right and the other wrong — they are the same name, and the printer simply used whichever block came to hand.
Underneath the confirmation there is a small piece of comedy still running. Sha Monk has just observed that most cultivation is as empty as a pig's stomach, and the very next thing that happens is a learned exchange between two monks about the antiquities of a holy site. The novel does not join the two up. It just puts them next to each other and moves on.