兴教寺

This guide to Xingjiao Temple in Xi'an starts with a fire that destroyed the temple during unrest in the 1860s, leaving only one structure standing: a squat brick tower built to look like timber, with carved brackets and sloping eaves disguising solid fired brick made to resist flame. It traces how that tower has held the reburied remains of the monk Xuanzang since 669, the pilgrim whose seventeen-year walk to India inspired Journey to the West. Two smaller towers beside it hold the ashes of his students, Kuiji and Yuance.