The 7 story Great Wild Goose Pagoda was built in
652AD. It is a striking elegant building and is the symbol of Xian.
The famous Buddhist monk Xuan Zang returned from a 17 year pilgrimage
and the square pagoda was built to house the 600 or so Buddhist
texts that he had collected in India.
The story of Xuan Zang’s great quest has been
immortalized in the classic Chinese story ‘Journey to the West’.
Opinion is divided as to whether the temple’s name derives from
a Buddhist sect in India or a resemblance between the base of the
pagoda and a wild goose. It was a tradition in Xian for successful
scholars to pin poems to the door of the pagoda as a symbol for
a bright future and some poems can still be seen on the door frames.
