Big Wild Goose Pagoda

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built in 652 AD to house the Buddhist scriptures and relics that the monk Xuanzang brought back from his seventeen-year journey to India — the journey fictionalised and elaborated in the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xi You Ji), one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. The pagoda's construction was supervised by Xuanzang himself within the precinct of Daci'en Temple, which had been established by the Tang crown prince Li Zhi (later Emperor Gaozong) in honour of his deceased mother.

The pagoda's current appearance — seven storeys, 64 metres, in plain brick with minimal decoration — reflects the Tang aesthetic of restrained Buddhist architecture as modified by various collapses and reconstructions over 1,400 years. The interior staircase allows ascent to the upper levels for views over the southern part of Xi'an; on clear winter days the Qinling mountains are visible to the south. The ground-floor exhibition of Xuanzang's journey and the Buddhist canon he brought back provides context that the pagoda exterior alone cannot convey.

The Shaanxi History Museum, a short walk north, is one of the three or four most significant provincial history museums in China. Its Tang-dynasty collection — gold and silver vessels, pottery figurines, silk fragments, and the famous Shosoin-type decorative arts — is the primary attraction and gives archaeological substance to the Tang capital that the pagoda represents architecturally. The museum's free admission (with timed tickets) reflects its status as a major national collection.

The large squares and fountain shows around the pagoda are Xi'an's contemporary civic infrastructure — grand in scale, popular with Shaanxi residents, and useful primarily for evening orientation.