Over the weekend, I visited the tourist town of Lijiang in Yunnan, which is ecologically and culturally the most diverse province in China. Lijiang, alongside Kunming, is one of Yunnan’s most vibrant yet most beautiful, cities.
Lijiang’s relatively quaint and small airport belies the fact that it is one of China’s most popular tourist cities in the southwest, right after the capital of Kunming and Shangri-la City (it was renamed thus in 2001).
Yunnan is a uniquely multicultural and multiethnic province of China, since it borders Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi, and Tibet, and the countries of Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. It is also home to various communities, including the Tibetans, Yi, and Nakhi ethnic groups, that have historically nurtured unique and syncretic streams of religious practice.
Home to some of the most beautiful flowers I have seen in China, from birchleaf pear flowers to roses to pomegranate flowers, Lijiang blossoms in the shadow of the stunning, awesome Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, which is a 5A, UNESCO-protected area and home to the southernmost glacier park of Eurasia. At the foothills of this avatar of nature are smaller mountainsides that have roads (which are still smoother than within the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu: perhaps a testament to China’s breakneck infrastructure development) leading to some of the most beautiful Vajrayana monasteries in southwestern China. It seemed only natural to take the chance to visit some of these Buddhist sites.
In two days, under the gaze of the jade dragon, I roamed about Lijiang’s mountainsides and foothills, visiting five locations in total: two on the Wenbishan mountain, which were Vajravahari’s Sacred Cave (Jingang haimulingdong 金剛亥母靈洞) and Wenfeng Temple, Zhiyun Temple, Fuguo Temple, and Puji Temple.
These sites are not only Karma Kagyu centers of learning and monastic cultivation, but anchor truly profound esoteric power. The wrathful Mahakala, who in the Karma Kagyu manifests as Two-Armed Mahakala, is present at every site, while locations like Vajravahari are charged with holy power. All the sites are well-kept and maintained, and we were able to meet several eminent and respected masters tasked with guiding the monastic communities, most of whom comprise Tibetan and Naxi monks.
It would seem that the Karma Kagyu school, or at least the sanghas that matter, have made their peace and embraced their role as protectors of the Chinese nation. HH the 17th Karmapa, HH the 12th Tai Situpa, and the 12th Goshri Gyaltsabpa are all enshrined among the deity and Buddha images at the altars of each monastery and temple. It is extraordinary how beloved and missed the Karmapa and Tai Situ Rinpoche are in Lijiang. But given the diversity of Yunnan Vajrayana, monasteries near Shangri-la City and Kunming do not share such uniform Karma Kagyu devotion, being more oriented toward the Gelug school.
What interested me just as much as the dominant Karma Kagyu community in Lijiang is why there is a “jade dragon” on Lijiang’s greatest peak. Apparently, the jagged snow-topped peaks have a visual resemblance to a giant silver-white dragon, and the glacial sheen of the snow poetically evokes the exquisite smoothness of jade. The Naxi ethnic community also treats the mountain as sacred, with a local folk legend claiming that the mountain is actually a protective, benevolent dragon alternately called Sanduo (三多), a guardian deity who was once a young warrior hero wielding a jade sword. His legend states that he transformed into the mountain, his sword becoming the 13 peaks.
The snow is actually at risk, perhaps unsurprisingly, due to the melting snow of the Himalayas amidst the climate crisis. This puts at risk not only the appearance that gave the Jade Dragon Mountain its folkloric memory, but potentially the physical geography of the landscape. The Jade Dragon Mountain is part of a larger mountain ecosystem, with the neighboring Haba Snow Mountain being called the former’s “Brother Mountain.” Another folk tale in the area claims that they were not siblings, but lovers, separated by a jealous river deity. They were even assigned gender roles, with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山) being the male (dragon-like, majestic), and Haba Snow Mountain being “female” with gentler slopes.
No doubt, the anchored holy power of the many monasteries, temples, and pilgrimage sites in Lijiang, and the dragon dwelling in and embodying the great rime mountain, mutually reinforce one another’s sacred power. No wonder why the entire city, even the more developed, secular town center, seems so alive with both brash vitality and cultural reverence.
