Big Wild Goose Pagoda

A tall brick tower rises directly ahead of you, square and solid, climbing story upon story up into the open sky. Around its wide base spread the quiet courtyards of a temple that is still in daily use. The smell of burning incense drifts past on the air, sweet and a little sharp, and somewhere out of sight a soft bell sounds once and slowly fades.

This is the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, in the southern part of Xi'an. It stands inside an old Buddhist temple called Da Ci'en, which means a temple of great kindness and care. The pagoda has watched over this same patch of ground for more than thirteen hundred years, while the city around it rose, fell, and rose again many times over.

It was first built in the year 652, during the Tang dynasty. At that time the city, then called Chang'an, was the capital of all China and one of the largest cities anywhere on earth. The tower was not raised as a monument or a simple decoration. It was built for one clear and practical purpose: to safely hold a precious collection of sacred books.

Those books had been brought home by a monk named Xuanzang. He had traveled overland, on foot and by cart, all the way to India and back again, a journey that took him many long and dangerous years. He returned carrying hundreds of Buddhist texts, and he urgently needed a strong, safe place to store them and to begin the slow work of translating them.

So this tower was built to protect the precious scriptures from fire, theft, and damage. Xuanzang himself helped to plan its design. Inside the temple below it, he then spent years of his life carefully turning the Indian texts into the Chinese language, word by word. That patient work helped shape the practice of Buddhism across the whole country for many centuries to come.

His long road to India later grew into legend. Hundreds of years afterward, it inspired one of China's best loved stories of all, a tale of a gentle monk and his strange companions journeying west in search of holy books. Many of the visitors standing here today know that colorful story very well, long before they ever learn the real history behind it.

The pagoda itself has changed over the long centuries. It began with fewer levels than it has now, and it was rebuilt and repaired more than once after damage. Today it stands seven stories tall, reaching about sixty-four meters up into the air. Its square shape narrows gently and evenly as it rises, which gives the whole tower a calm, simple, well balanced look.

Look carefully at the material it is made from. The entire tower is built of plain gray brick, but the brick is laid cleverly to imitate older wooden buildings. You can pick out flat columns and small supporting brackets shaped right into the surface of each face. This honest, strong, unpainted style is very typical of the building of the Tang dynasty.

You are able to go inside and climb the narrow stairs all the way to the top. On each floor there are windows that face out toward the four directions. As you climb higher and higher, the city below you spreads wider and wider. From the topmost level, the view reaches out across rooftops, green parks, and the long, straight roads of the surrounding district.

Back down at ground level, take some time to walk slowly through the temple courtyards themselves. Monks still live, study, and pray here every day. You will pass halls holding golden statues, with incense smoke curling in front of them. Near the southern gate stands a statue of Xuanzang himself, upright and dignified, his face turned out toward the long road he once traveled.

Directly in front of the temple lies a long public square set with many fountains. In the evening, the water and recorded music play together in time, and large crowds gather along the edges to watch the moving jets of water. Through it all, the old tower simply stands behind the square, dark and calm, rising high above the bright, shifting lights.

Before you turn to leave, look up one last time at the worn gray brick high above you. For over thirteen centuries it has held its place here, through changing dynasties, fires, and storms. It began its life as a careful home for books carried across mountains and deserts on a monk's back, and in its own quiet way it still keeps that same patient purpose today.