如來遭扎 Even the Buddha Was Stung
他前者在雷音寺聽佛談經，如來見了，不合用手推他一把，他就轉過鉤子，把如來左手中拇指上扎了一下。如來也疼難禁，即著金剛拿他。他卻在這裡。若要救得唐僧，除是別告一位方好，我也是近他不得。」行者再拜道：「望菩薩指示指示，別告那位去好？弟子即去請他也。」菩薩道：「你去東天門裡光明宮告求昴日星官，方能降伏。」言罷，遂化作一道金光，徑回南海。他前者在雷音寺听佛谈经，如来见了，不合用手推他一把，他就转过钩子，把如来左手中拇指上扎了一下。如来也疼难禁，即着金刚拿他。他却在这里。若要救得唐僧，除是别告一位方好，我也是近他不得。」行者再拜道：「望菩萨指示指示，别告那位去好？弟子即去请他也。」菩萨道：「你去东天门里光明宫告求昴日星官，方能降伏。」言罢，遂化作一道金光，径回南海。
逐句解 Line by line
“Some while ago she was at the Monastery of Thunderclap, listening to the Buddha expound the scriptures. The Tathagata saw her and — he ought not to have done it — pushed her once with his hand; whereupon she turned her hook about and jabbed him, once, upon the thumb of his left hand.
不合 is 'ought not to have', a judgement passed on the Tathagata by the Bodhisattva. 左手中拇指 takes the locative zhōng.
“Even the Tathagata found the pain past enduring, and at once set the Vajra-guardians to seize her.
難禁 takes 禁 as jīn, to bear — the same reading as at Pilgrim's own wound, and the same phrase. 即著 uses the causative-dispatch 著, zhuó.
“And here she is.
Five graphs, and the whole of the transition from the Buddha's finger to a cave on the road west. No guarded graph falls in this segment.
“If you would save the Tang Monk, nothing will serve but to petition another; even I cannot come near her.”
救得 takes the attainment dé, as 接得 and 取得 do; 近他不得 is the potential negative and takes the particle de. The two occurrences differ and take positional specs.
Pilgrim bowed again and said, “I beg the Bodhisattva to instruct me — which other should I petition? Your disciple will go and invite him at once.”
別告那位 is interrogative, which one, so 那 is nǎ rather than the deictic nà. 指示指示 is a verbal reduplication of entreaty, matching her own 搭救搭救.
The Bodhisattva said, “Go within the Eastern Gate of Heaven, to the Palace of Radiance, and beg the help of the Star Officer of the Mao mansion; only so can she be subdued.”
降伏 takes 降 as xiáng, to subdue — against the jiàng of 下降 in Pilgrim's own speech a few segments earlier. 昴 is one of the twenty-eight lunar mansions, the one whose animal is the cock.
Having spoken, she changed into a shaft of golden light and returned straight to the Southern Sea.
言罷 takes 罷 as the verb bà, to finish — position decides, against the sentence-final particle ba. 化 is invariant huà.
The demon's boast in the middle of a losing fight was 你那雷音寺裡佛如來，也還怕我哩 — that Buddha Tathagata of yours is afraid of me himself. It sounded then like the usual noise of a cornered creature. It was a plain statement of fact. She sat in the assembly at Thunderclap while the Buddha preached, and when he pushed her with his hand she turned and stung him on the thumb of his left hand, and he found the pain 難禁, past enduring — the identical phrase Pilgrim used of his own scalp. The chapter has been quietly holding this in reserve since its second engagement.
Guanyin's phrasing about the incident deserves notice, because it apportions blame. 不合用手推他一把 — he ought not to have pushed her. The Tathagata is not described as attacked but as having done something he should not have done, and the scorpion's response, while excessive, is presented as a response. This is a remarkably even-handed sentence to find in the mouth of one Bodhisattva about another Buddha, and it is of a piece with the narrator's earlier concession that she had in her a lingering unwillingness to part with her prisoner.
Then the limit. 我也是近他不得 — even I cannot come near her. Guanyin does not attempt the rescue and does not pretend the refusal is discretionary; she states an incapacity and refers the case onward. The remedy she names is not a greater power but a particular one, the Star Officer of the Mao mansion, whose animal is the cock. A scorpion is not to be beaten by force at all. It is to be met by the one creature that eats scorpions, and the chapter's whole escalation — rod, rake, Bodhisattva — has been arranged to arrive at a barnyard fowl.