Large Wild Goose Pagoda

Large Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an

The final thing we toured while in Xi'an was the Dayan Ta (Large Wild-Goose Pagoda). It's located in the southern district of Xi'an outside of the city wall. Tang Emperor Gaozong had the pagoda built to protect the 657 volumes of Buddhist writings in 652. They had been brought back to Xi'an after a pilgrimage to India by a Chinese monk Xuanzang--the pilgrimage was from Sept 629 to Feb 645!

The name of the pagoda refers to an old Indian legend telling of a monastery where the monks were allowed to eat venison, veal and wild goose according to the school of Southern Hinayana Buddhism. One day, a flock of wild geese flew over the monastery--during a time when there was much hunger throughout the region. The geese admonished the greedily staring monks to give up eating meat and bade them to teach and missionize according to the school of Mahayana Buddhism. As a warning, one of the geese sacrificed itself by plummeting from the air. The monks then built a pagoda and buried the goose there.

This pagoda is square, 64m high and originally had five stories. It started to decay and was torn down from 701 to 705 and a much more splendid and taller pagoda was built--with possibly 10 stories at the time. Today, it only has seven stories and it remands well-preserved over some 1,200 years. The view from the top is incredible! It's also a tough 'calf/hamstring/quadricep' workout. We managed the climb up/down to the excellent view in 15 minutes but our legs 'repaid' us for it the rest of the day! :(