BEIJING: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping walked hand in hand, and chatted at a pagoda in his home town of Xi'an on Thursday. The two leaders seemed to have built up a rare chemistry, which would help bring the two countries closer.The two leaders walked around in the Wild Goose Pagoda, which houses the rare manuscripts of Xuan Zhen, the 6th-century scholar who brought Buddhist texts from India and helped spread Buddhism in China. Xi took him around the sprawling pagoda premises, showing his reliecs of the scholar. Modi gifted the Chinese leader with a Bodhi sampling to signify that Buddism is one of the key factors behinds the civilizational relationship between India and China. Xi reciprocated presenting him a figurine of Xuan Zhen."This is the first time I have treated a foreign leader in my hometown and I hope you have a happy stay," Xi said at the start of their meeting. He also thanked the Indian Prime Minister for the warm reception given to him in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, in September last year."That left me with a deep and good impression," Xi said. During the visit, they have "reached an important consensus on promoting the bilateral strategic partnership of cooperation and forging a closer partnership of development," the official Xinhua quoted the Chinese president as saying.The Chinese president conveyed his admiration for Modi as he discussed the "Gujarat miracle" and said he would eagerly wait for it to spread across India. Gujarat is one state which has attracted the maxium amount of Chinese investments, and seen projects being implemented as compared to several other places where Chinese funded projects have been held up.Chinese President Xi looks on as Prime Minister Modi receives a golden Buddha statue from Buddhist abbot of Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an. (Reuters photo)Xi watched on with a faint smile on his face as the Indian Prime Mininster spent 6-7 minutes writing three pages in the visitor’s book at the pagoda about his feelings on visiting the relics of the monk, who also visited his home town of Vadnagar in Gujarat.The two leaders arrived at the pagoda after a 90-minute meeting during which more than a dozen issues were discussed. Issues covered during the structured dialogue at a guest house covered issues concerning the border dispute.“They discussed the problem of terrorism, more so in the context of what has happened in Kabul today, and what happened in Pakistan,” foreign secretary S.Jaishankar said referring to the recent bloodbath in the two countries this week.