The Bai people, some 3.5 million of them, currently inhabit the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, which lies toward the northwest in China’s Yunnan province.
Their language, in as many as nine dialects, defies categorization as a type. Is it Sino-Tibetan? Tibeto-Burman? Or sui generis? Who knows? And is Bai religion mainly autochthonous? Or a variant of Buddhism? Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan Buddhism all have a place in it, but some elements seem purely local.
The Bai enter history in the form of the Dian Kingdom of the last centuries B.C.E. Better known is the Nanzhao Kingdom, coincident in time with China’s Tang Dynasty (618–907). The Dali Kingdom, founded later, was annexed by Khubilai Khan and his Mongols in 1253. There was never again an independent Bai state, nor any serious attempt to resurrect one. Yet from that day to this one, the Bai have managed to survive, indeed even prosper....