The Big Wild Goose Pagoda

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is at the center a Buddhist temple complex just to the South of the Xi'an city walls.  The temple dates back to the glory days of ancient Xi'an, then called Chang'an, during the Tang dynasty.  The temple here was founded in the year 652.  Since then, the temple complex has been a special place for the Buddhists of China

Buddhism came to China from India, about 2000 years ago, during the Han dynasty.  The early Chinese Buddhists had to rely upon word-of-mouth to instruct them in their ways.  The foundational texts of the Buddha remained far away in India, written in Sanskrit.

At the start of the Tang Dynasty, about 600 AD or so, a Chinese monk named Xuanzang left his home in Chang'an to travel on a pilgrimage to India.  For 16 years he studied in the best temples there.  When he returned to China, he brought many copies of the original Sanskrit texts, and set about translating them directly into Chinese.  He founded temple and built the first version of the pagoda.  The place has been a holy spot for the Buddhists of China ever since.

 The pagoda stands over 200 feet tall and is made of brick.  In many ways, it looks like the pagoda on Tiger Hill near Suzhou.  The Wild Goose pagoda is better preserved, though.  And just as the Tiger Hill pagoda leans away from vertical, so too does the Wild Goose pagoda.  They both tilt like the leaning tower of Pisa.  It seems the old pagoda builders had a thing or two to learn about building solid foundations.

The Wild Goose pagoda is still an active center of Buddhist faith.  On the day we visited, the temple was filled with golden-robed monks chanting their prayers.  The first and third photos show them seated to the left and the right of the statue of the great Buddha...chanting from their prayer books.  In the third photo, the monk in the foreground has a small hammer in his right hand that he used to strike the cadence on a small, wooden drum. 

The second photo shows the statue of the Buddha at the center of the temple.  Once again, we see the golden robes open at the chest to reveal the swastika.  Surrounding the central statue are smaller ones, and surrounding them are even smaller figures carved as decorations into the walls. The fourth photo shows one of the scenes, typical of the many carved into the wooden paneling.