Lijiang Dabaoji Palace and Liuli Hall

In 1938, architectural historian Liu Dunzhen stood in the quiet courtyard of Baisha Old Town, eight kilometers north of Lijiang. He was measuring the heavy timber frames of two contiguous halls built on a single east-northeast axis. Before him grew a five-hundred-year-old tamarisk tree, its trunk twisting horizontally across the stone path near a four-hundred-year-old ginkgo.

These structures, commissioned by the ruling Naxi Mu chieftains, represent a rare convergence of traditions. The older structure, Liuli Hall, dates to 1417. It was dedicated to the Medicine Buddha. Its upper eaves feature a seven-colored, three-step bracket system with diagonal "three-leaf cloud" designs. This is one of the earliest known uses of this technique in China. Inside, the walls preserve sixteen murals of the Medicine Buddha Sutra alongside nine donor inscriptions. These inscriptions record the names of generations of the Mu family, including Mu Chu and Mu Zeng.

Directly behind stands the Dabaoji Palace, completed in 1582. Its square floor plan is supported by thick, majestic wooden columns and wide beams under a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof. Within its dim interior, twelve murals cover sixty-one square meters. The largest painting, "The Buddha Giving Teachings," measures nearly five meters wide. It depicts the Buddha in red robes, flanked by eighteen arhats and the Four Heavenly Kings. Han artist Ma Xiaotian led a diverse group of Tibetan, Naxi, and Bai painters to complete these works. They placed Buddhist, Daoist, and Lamaist deities side by side on the same plaster walls.

In 1996, the complex became a National Major Historical and Cultural Site, joining the UNESCO World Heritage list the following year. Visitors can now view high-resolution reproductions in a digital exhibition hall, preserving the physical site where ancient timber and living art remain bound together.