Inside the third gate were the divine monks whose office is the laying-on of offerings; and when they heard that the Tang monk had come they hurried down to the Great Hero Hall and reported to the Tathāgata, the Most Honoured Śākyamuni Buddha of Letters: "The holy monk of the Tang court has come to the Treasure Mountain to fetch the scriptures."

⚠ 打供的神僧 — the divine monks who lay on the offerings. Every large temple has a kitchen and a staff who cook for it, and heaven's does too. These are the catering department, and they are the ones who carry the news in. ⚠ The last character of 打供 is read as the offering itself, matching the word for a meal set out for monks that ran through the previous two chapters. It is the only place in the novel this two-character phrase appears, and the reading is a judgement rather than a certainty. ⚠ 大雄殿 — the Great Hero Hall, and it is the standard name for the main hall of a Chinese Buddhist temple to this day. The Great Hero is the Buddha.

The Buddha was greatly pleased.

⚠ Five characters, and the middle two are the surprise. 佛爺爺 is not a title from any scripture. It is what a Chinese villager calls the Buddha — grandfather, the affectionate form used to a magistrate or an old man, the same word the Kou brothers used to a prefect in the previous chapter. ⚠ At the exact moment the novel reaches the being it has been walking towards for a hundred chapters, it stops using the Sanskrit-derived titles it used one line earlier and calls him grandad. And says he is pleased.

At once he summoned the eight Bodhisattvas, the four vajra-guardians, the five hundred arhats, the three thousand Guardians of the Revelation, the eleven Great Luminaries and the eighteen monastery-protectors, and had them drawn up in two rows.

⚠ Six named orders with their numbers, in one sentence, and the numbers are the point: eight, four, five hundred, three thousand, eleven, eighteen. It is a muster roll. 揭諦 transcribes a Sanskrit word from the Heart Sutra's closing mantra and names a class of guardian spirits; the novel says it eighty-four times. 大曜 are the great heavenly bodies — sun, moon, planets — and 伽藍 transcribes saṃghārāma, a monastery, and by extension the spirits who guard one. ⚠ 兩行排列 — drawn up in two ROWS. The character is háng, a rank of things side by side, exactly as in the verse a moment ago, and not the xíng it takes almost everywhere else.

Then he sent down a golden decree, summoning the Tang monk to enter.

⚠ 金旨 — a golden decree. The book has used this phrase twice before in this chapter, both times of the commission Guanyin was given in Chapter 8 — the one the Great Immortal complained about at his gate. The same instrument that started the journey ends it. ⚠ And it is an instrument. Not a word, not a gesture: a decree, issued and transmitted. The Buddha runs an office.

Inside, tier by tier and rank by rank, they attended reverently to the Buddha's command and called, "Holy monk, come in."

⚠ 一層一節 — one tier, one section. The call is relayed inward through the ranks the way the news was relayed outward through the gates a moment ago. The same machinery, running the other way. 欽依 — to receive and comply with reverently. It is the formula that appears on Chinese imperial documents, and the book applies it unchanged to a buddha.

So the Tang monk, keeping strictly to rule and measure, went in through the mountain gate with Wukong, Wuneng and Wujing, leading the horse and shouldering the loads.

⚠ 循規蹈矩 — following the compasses and treading the carpenter's square. A four-character phrase still in daily use for somebody who does everything by the book, and its two instruments are the ones a craftsman uses to get a circle and a right angle true. The novel says it twice. ⚠ And look at the names. Not Monkey, Pigsy and Sha Monk — 悟空, 悟能, 悟淨, the religious names they were given when they took refuge. At the door of the Buddha's hall the book uses their proper names for the only time in this chapter. ⚠ 牽馬挑擔 — and they are still leading the horse and carrying the luggage. Nobody has taken the bags.

And this is how it was:

The cue, and the second of this chapter's two sites for this particular phrase — the other announced the bridge. What follows is four lines that summarise the whole journey, and it is the last verse before the Buddha speaks.