Scenic Area Culture

　　Luoquan Peninsula Tourist Area: A Cultural Symphony of Millennial Buddhist Legacy and Cang'er Scenery

　　Luoquan Peninsula Tourist Area is a cultural gem embedded on the east bank of Erhai Lake. Its history can be traced back to the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms, serving as a testament to the fusion of "Miaoxiang Buddhist Kingdom" Buddhist culture and Bai indigenous beliefs. The peninsula is famous for the Tang Dynasty monk Luoquan who practiced asceticism there. King Ge Luofeng of Nanzhao, moved by his virtue, granted him "Dongyadi" to build a temple. Since then, the name "Luoquan" has been associated with this landscape for a thousand years. Surrounded by water on three sides, the peninsula's mountain range pierces the clouds, facing the nineteen peaks of Cangshan across the lake, forming a magnificent layout of "one mountain overlooking two dynasties, one pagoda guarding a millennium." It became an important station for the eastward transmission of Buddhist culture during the Nanzhao and Dali periods, and also a concrete expression of the Bai people's philosophy of "harmony between man and nature."

　　 I. Millennial Buddhist Lineage: From Guanyin Daochang to Chan Buddhism Holy Land

　　Luoquan Temple, at the heart of the peninsula, was initially built on the site of the Tang Dynasty Guanyin Temple. The Aoxie Guanyin statue enshrined in the temple is a typical image of the "national founding god" of the Nanzhao Kingdom. Its slender figure and high bun hairstyle, blending Indian esoteric Buddhism and Bai aesthetics, bear witness to the process of the localization of Buddhist art. Fragments of the "Luoquan Master's Biography" stele in the temple record that the master once used supernatural powers to calm the waves of Erhai Lake, helping the Nanzhao navy defeat the Tang army. This legend echoes the narrative of "Guanyin Subduing the Rakshasa" in the Bai epic "The Origin of the Bai Kingdom," highlighting the spiritual power of Buddhism in maintaining the legitimacy of the local regime.

　　Luoquan Pagoda stands on the mountaintop with the architectural style of a Tang dynasty "Mianyan" pagoda. The octagonal seven-story pagoda has Buddhist life story reliefs embedded in each layer. Scenes such as "Self-Sacrifice to Feed the Tiger" and "Nine-Colored Deer" share the same origin with Dunhuang murals, yet they interpret the unique understanding of Buddhism by Bai artisans with the cold texture of marble. The fragments of the Sanskrit palm-leaf manuscript of the "Diamond Sutra" treasured inside the pagoda have been carbon-dated to the Nanzhao period. Its script is of the same lineage as ancient Nepalese scriptures, proving the Buddhist cultural exchange along the ancient "Tea-Horse Road" between Yunnan and Tibet.

　　 II. Landscape Paintings: The Spiritual Home of Literati and Scholars

　　The peninsula is not only a Buddhist paradise but also an important image in Chinese landscape paintings. When Ming Dynasty scholar Yang Shen was demoted to Yunnan, he stayed at Tianjing Pavilion and left behind the masterpiece "Tianjing opens its leaves and elm, Jade Erhai and silver Cangshan surge," comparing the peninsula to a "mirror of heaven and earth," reflecting the literati's pursuit of the realm of "forgetting both self and things." The existing Ming Dynasty inscription "Tianjing Pavilion Record" in the pavilion records that "poetry and wine gatherings" were held in the pavilion, where Bai literati used "Cangshan snow" and "Erhai moon" as themes, copied poems on Dai paper, and stored them in copper boxes on the top of the pavilion, becoming a physical testament to the "wind, flowers, snow, and moon" literary tradition.

　　From the top of Luoquan Pagoda, one can see the nineteen peaks and eighteen streams of Cangshan lying like a giant dragon, and the four islands, three islets, and nine bends of Erhai Lake winding like a green ribbon. This scene echoes Xu Xiake's description in his "Diary of Yunnan Travels" of "islands winding around, shaped like city walls," and is consistent with the Bai people's cosmology of "Cangshan as father, Erhai as mother." The giant rock "Shimulozi" on the east side of the peninsula, shaped like a divine mule guarding the sea, is revered by the Bai people as the incarnation of the "Benzhu" (local deity). The Nanzhao pictographs engraved on it belong to the same primitive Chinese character system as oracle bone inscriptions and are known as the "living fossil of Dianxi characters."

　　 III. Legendary Secret Realm: The Living Inheritance of Bai Culture

　　The "Prince's Pavilion" on the peninsula is said to have been the refuge of the last prince Zhongling of Nanzhao. The legend of his "transformation into a crane and ascension to immortality" is intertwined with the story of "the prince's deployment of troops" in the "Du Wenxiu Uprising" in Dali Ancient City, reflecting the Bai people's collective memory of the last royal family. The mural "Prince's Cultivation" inside the pavilion, painted with the "iron wire drawing" technique, depicts figures whose robes seem to move with the wind, inheriting the style of the "Nanzhao King's Inspection Tour" in the Jianchuan Grottoes, showing the transformation of Bai painting art from religious narratives to secular aesthetics.

　　The legend of "Waiting Wife Cloud" ranks the peninsula alongside Cangshan's jade belt clouds and Xiaguan wind as one of Dali's three great meteorological wonders. Legend has it that a Nanzhao princess fell in love with a Cangshan hunter, but their love was broken by her father, and she turned into a "waiting wife cloud." Every winter and spring, the clouds rush towards Luoquan Pagoda, causing strong winds on Erhai Lake. This legend not only explains the climatic phenomenon of "three-foot waves without wind" on the peninsula, but also uses "clouds" as a medium to build an emotional bond between Cangshan, Erhai Lake, and the peninsula, becoming a complex symbol of Bai love and nature worship.

　　 IV. New Chapter in Culture and Tourism: A Cultural Field of Integration of Past and Present

　　As a national AAA-level tourist area, Luoquan Peninsula takes "living protection" as its concept, integrating cultural connotations into modern experiences. In the "intangible cultural heritage workshops" in the scenic area, visitors can make Bai tie-dye, with the pattern of "nineteen peaks of Cangshan" echoing the landscape of the peninsula; in the Zen tea room, the "Lei Xiang Tea" ceremony demonstrates the Nanzhao imperial tea ceremony, the sound of tea foam hitting the earthenware resonates with the wind chimes on the pagoda eaves; when night falls, the "Luoquan Fantasy" light and shadow show uses holographic technology to recreate the grand scene of the founding of Nanzhao, allowing tourists to "travel through" a thousand years and witness the fusion of the eastward transmission of Buddhism and Bai civilization.

　　The peninsula's "cultural corridor" displays replicas of cultural relics such as Nanzhao iron pillars, Dali Kingdom Sanskrit Buddhist pagodas, and Ming Dynasty ink paintings of Erhai Lake in a "timeline" format, supplemented by AR guidance, allowing tourists to touch the cultural context from "Miaoxiang Buddhist Kingdom" to "famous city of literature" with a swipe of their fingers. The regularly held "Luoquan Cultural Forum" invites domestic and foreign scholars to discuss topics such as Nanzhao history, Bai Benzhu beliefs, and Buddhist art, making the peninsula a "Cang'er living room" for international academic exchanges.

　　 Conclusion

　　Luoquan Peninsula is a secret realm where pagodas dance with clouds, a text where legends and history intertwine, and a model of the coexistence of landscape and humanity. It weaves a three-dimensional scroll of Bai culture with a thousand-year-old Buddhist lineage as the warp and Cang'er scenery as the weft. Here, every inscription is a footnote of history, every wisp of smoke is the incarnation of legend, and every visit is a pilgrimage to "harmony between man and nature." Luoquan Peninsula is using culture as a boat, carrying tourists from all ages to the deeper waters of Dali civilization.