Have you watched "Journey to the West"? Do you know that there is a Zeng monk in the play? Do you know the monastery where the monk Xitian returned from learning the scriptures? And that pagoda?
Some people think that the story of learning scriptures from the west is made up.
Not really.
Tang Seng is the original form of the character, he is the Tang Dynasty Tang Sanzang, also known as "Xuanzang", he was the West Heaven after returning from the scriptures to spread the temple called the Great Ci'en Temple.
What about the pagoda?
It's called "Big Wild Goose Pagoda".
Why is it called the "Big Wild Goose Pagoda"?
There's a story here, let me tell you slowly.
Legend has it that a long time ago, a monk in a monastery in Magadha (present-day southern Bihar, India) practiced Theravada Buddhism and ate three pure foods (i.e., geese, deer, and calves).
One day, a flock of geese flew in the sky.
When a monk saw a flock of geese, he said, "Everyone has nothing to eat today, and the Bodhisattva should know that we are hungry!" ”
Before the words fell, a goose fell to death in front of the monk, he was pleasantly surprised, and told all the monks in the temple, all thinking that this was the Buddha who was educating them.
So in the place where the geese fell, the tower was built with a grand ceremony to bury the geese, and named the wild goose pagoda.
Between 629 and 645 A.D., the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang visited this wild goose pagoda while studying in India.
After returning to China, during the translation of scriptures in the Ci'en Temple, in order to store the scriptures and Buddha statues brought back from India, in 652 AD, in the west courtyard of the Ci'en Temple, a brick pagoda imitating the form of the Indian wild goose pagoda was built, and this tower was called the wild goose pagoda.