China’s Wild Goose Pagoda houses Nalanda treasures

PATNA: This is the way we can put Bihar on top of the world. The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda which Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited on Thursday was inspired by ancient Nalanda.
“To me it appears from the architectural study of Nalanda that monastery (No 1) was the library from where the famous Chinese traveller Xuanzang had copied the books and carried them to China,” said former superintending archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) Patna Circle Muhammed K K.
“The Chinese traveller wanted to have the Wild Goose Pagoda after Nalanda. It was this library that the invader Bakhtiyar Khilji had destroyed,” Mohammed told TOI over phone from New Delhi. The Wild Goose Pagoda was built in 652 AD in recognition of monk Xuanzang’s 17-year journey to India and his efforts to popularize Buddhism in China.
Modi also gifted a Bodhi tree sapling to the temple. In return, the abbot of the monastery gifted him a figurine of Xuanzang. In his last few visits abroad, Modi has gifted mementos from the glorious past of Bihar such as Madhubani paintings and this time a sapling of the Bodhi tree, said Anil Kumar, who teaches ancient Indian history at the Visva-Bharti University in Santiniketan. “We can attract lakhs of tourists if we showcase such wonders to the world,” said Kumar.
“We should have preserved the copies of the manuscripts which Xuanzang had carried from Nalanda and other parts of India. The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda was built by emperor Gaozong on the request of Xuanzang,” Mohammed said. He wrote a lengthy report not only detailing the condition of Buddhist sites such as ‘Na Lan Tuo’ (Nalanda) but also sharing useful geographical information and describing trade opportunities.
Apart from the report, Xuanzang brought back — courtesy pious Indian rulers — a caravan of elephants carrying 657 manuscripts, seven Buddha statues and 150 sacred relics, such as bits of Buddha’s flesh and a box full of Buddha’s bones, said another Buddhist scholar. The fireproof library was built in AD 652 to house Xuanzang’s collection.
On January 12, 1957, the Dalai Lama and Panchem Lama of Tibet, representatives of the then Chinese government, had handed over the relics of Xuanzang and an endowment for the construction of the memorial to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Very few of us are aware that the relics of Xuanzang are at the Patna museum under lock and key since 1957. The relics containing the skull bone is kept in a crystal casket amid tight security. The size of the relics is roughly one-and-a-half feet in height.
Xuanzang studied with many noted Buddhist masters. He was a student at Nalanda for five years and taught there for a year.