The Wild Goose Tower, otherwise known as the Mercy Temple Tower, is situated in the Mercy Temple in the southern suburbs of the City of Xi An in Shanxi Province of China. This Buddhist tower used to serve as a storage house of the Buddhist scriptures brought back by Master Xuanzang from his westward journey to India. This tower is one of the masterpieces of the Chinese Buddhist architecture from the Tang Dynasty. The construction of the Wild Goose Tower started in 652 when Master Xuanzang wanted a sacred place to keep the precious Buddhist statues, relics and scriptures he had brought back from India. It was reconstructed in the year of Chang An during the reign of Wu Zetian (the only empress in the ancient China) and underwent several renovations afterwards. The well-preserved seven-storey square pyramidal brick tower measures 64.5 metres high, and the storeys scale down from the bottom to the top. Inside of the tower a wooden staircase spirals up to the top floor. On the four sides of each floor there are arch-doors where you may look through and get a distant view of the ancient city of Xi An. Because the Wild Goose Tower has been a reputed tourist resort ever since the Tang Dynasty, it holds a large collection of tablet writing composed by generations of poets and writers during their visit to the tower. The writing from the Ming and Qing Dynasty alone totals more than 200 pieces. The Wild Goose Tower represents the typical architectural characteristics of symmetry, modesty and solemnity of the Buddhist constructions. It is one of the landmarks of the city of Xi An.
The Wild Goose Tower Attractions
The Northern Square of the Wild Goose Tower
The Wild Goose Tower Stories
1. Buddhist relics
The Wild Goose Tower is closely related to the Buddhist relics. In 652, Master Xuanzang constructed the tower to keep the Buddhist scriptures and relics he had brought back from the Western Regions. However, it is a mystery as to how many Buddhist relics he had brought back. According to Fashizhuan (Biography of the Master), he returned with 150 red Buddhist Relics and a collection of bone Buddhist Relics, but the exact amount was unspecified. In the chapter of the construction of the Wild Goose Tower, it is recorded that on each floor of the tower there are one or two thousands of Buddhist relics, all together there are more than 10,000. No accurate historical record can be traced as to how the Buddhist relics were disposed of during its reconstruction. Therefore, there is no knowing whether the invaluable Buddhist relics have been relocated, scattered or lost. Some suspect that the Buddhist relics are hidden in an underground palace of the Wild Goose Tower. But the site has never been excavated and the precise location unclear. Perhaps it will remain a mystery for years to come.
2. Master Xuanzang and the Wild Goose Tower
The Wild Goose Tower is famous for its relation with Master Xuanzang’s westward pilgrimage journey in pursuit of the Buddhist scriptures. Master Xuanzang was once the head monk of the Mercy Temple. He arranged to have various Buddhist scriptures translated from Sanskrit into Chinese and initiated a Buddhist denomination. The Wild Goose Tower was built under his suggestion and supervision too.
Master Xuanzang (602-664) set off alone on the journey from Chang An to the Western Region following the Silk Road in 629 of the Tang Dynasty, and encountered numerous difficulties before he made it to the Buddhist Holy Land, India. The journey took him three years and covered more than 25 thousand kilometres. In India he followed and learnt from Master Baijiexian of the renowned Nalanda Monastery and spent five years there to study Buddhism and travel around the country. In order to translate and spread the Buddhist scriptures in China, Xuanzang declined his tutors, fellow monks and the kings of many countries who strongly persuaded him to stay and returned to Chang An with 657 sutras, eight Buddhist statues and a large quantity of Buddhist relics in the year 645. The next year, under the order of the empress, he began the translation of the scriptures in Hongfu Temple of Chang An and the project lasted for three years. In 649 the Mercy Temple was completed and Xuanzang was appointed head of the temple. He carried on with the translation. In 652 he built the Wild Goose Tower where he respectfully placed the precious Buddhist objects he had brought back from India. In 664 Master Xuanzang died of illness in Yuhua Temple after a lifetime of dedication and hard work.
3. The Wild Goose
Does the Wild Goose Tower have anything to do with the wild goose? The most convincing explanation comes from the story which Xuanzang had heard from the Indian monks as recorded in his work Datang Xiyu Ji (The Story of the Western Regions in the Tang Dynasty). Once upon a time, in Magadha (now the south of Bihar State of India) there was a temple where the monks believed in Hinayana and ate the Three Pure Food—wild goose, deer and calf. One day a flock of wild geese flew over the temple. One of the monks saw them and said, “Nobody has had any meal today, and the Buddha should have known about this.” Just at this moment one of the geese fell from the sky and landed in front of this monk. He was amazed and told the rest of the monks of the temple what had happened. They contributed this miracle to the Buddha. So they held a grand funeral for the goose and built a tower on the exact spot where it fell, and named it the Wild Goose Tower. Xuanzang visited this tower during his trip to India from 629 to 645. After his return to China, he built a replica of the tower in the Mercy Temple and named it after the original one.
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