In China, surviving single pagodas at the Fo-kung Temple, Ying Hsien, Shansi, and at the P'u-shou Temple in Hopei, both dating from the eleventh century A.D., no doubt indicate persistence of this earliest plan under the architecturally conservative Liao (p. 709) long after it had disappeared in more metropolitan areas.

Their greatest discovery came on an expedition in 1937 when they dated and meticulously catalogued Foguang Si, or the Temple of Buddha’s Light, in Wutai County, Shanxi Province. The breathtaking wooden temple was built in 857 A.D., making it the oldest building known in China at the time. (It is now the fourth-oldest known).

Six hours are enough to devour the over 900 miles from Shanghai to Xi’an, the landlocked capital of Shaanxi Province in China’s central northwest, standing on the bones of the imperial city of Chang’an. In the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., this was the center of not only China but the globe — the eastern origin of the trade routes we call the Silk Road and the nexus of a cross-cultural traffic in ideas, technology, art and food that altered the course of history as decisively as the Columbian Exchange eight centuries later.

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