The AAA-level National Scenic Spot of Manmaisangkhang is a place where the love story of Zhaoshutun and the peacock princess Namunona is performed every day. The beautiful music, more than 100 peacocks falling from the sky, the graceful figures in the lake, and the wonderful speeches of the hosts tell this beautiful love story. "Zhaoshutun and Namunona" is a long narrative poem with love as the main line: Zhaoshutun, the prince of Mengbanjia Kingdom, and Namunona, the princess of Mengdongban Peacock Kingdom, met by the Golden Lake and found a beautiful love. The war brought disaster and destroyed the beautiful love, but the prince found the beautiful love again after untold hardships. Although the long poem was produced in the middle period of the feudal lord system, that is, the era when the feudal lord regime of the Dai people was the most prosperous and the Southern Theravada Buddhism was the most prosperous, it did not express the idea of Buddhist monastic practice, but praised life and love. The long poem "Zhaoshutun" is widely circulated in Dai areas and is deeply loved by the Dai people. Almost every village has a handwritten copy. In areas such as Yuanjiang and Jinping where Dai language is not popular, it is also circulated in the form of oral singing. After the Chinese translation was published, it immediately attracted attention at home and abroad, and was reprinted in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on radio. In the early 1980s, it was adapted into the movie "Peacock Princess", making this treasure of Dai literature well-known to the Chinese people. The influence of the long poem "Zhaoshutun" goes far beyond the Dai area and also occupies a place in the history of Chinese literature. The long poem has healthy thoughts and mature art. As its influence became more and more profound, different texts exploring the origin of the story also emerged, and different schools of thought put forward different views: those who believe in the "foreign introduction theory" believe that the prototype of the story originated from the ancient Sanskrit collection of India, which was first circulated in Southeast Asia and then introduced to the Dai area of China with Buddhism; those who believe in the "Central Plains theory" believe that the prototype of the story originated from the myth of the "bird-clothed goddess" that many ethnic groups in China have; those who believe in the "self-generation theory" believe that it originated from the ancient bird myth of the Dai people. As early as the early primitive society, the ancestors of the Dai people had bird totem worship and created many myths of "human head and bird body" and "human-bird marriage", which is the most primitive prototype of the union of the peacock fairy and humans. Researchers believe that in order to explore the origin of the long poem "Zhaoshutun", we must first clarify: First, which came first, the great migration of clan ancestors from north to south, or the great spread of Buddhism from south to north? Second, which came first, the ancient folk myth or the Buddha's Jataka story? According to historical records, the original ancestors of the Dai people mainly came from the Baiyue ethnic group. That is, after the Baiyue ethnic group migrated from southern China to the river valley of Yunnan, they merged with the local indigenous ancestors for a long time to form the current Dai people. Therefore, the primitive culture of the Dai people carries the elements of the Baiyue primitive culture. Bird worship, bird totems, and legends of bird-clothed goddesses are also one of the elements of the Baiyue primitive culture. It was introduced into the Dai area with the great migration of the Baiyue ancestors. This great migration of the clan ancestors was completed about 3,000 years ago, more than 1,000 years earlier than the birth of Buddhism. According to the order of historical development, the conclusion is that primitive myths such as "human-bird marriage" and "bird-clothed fairy" were first spread from the coastal areas of China to Southeast Asia with the great migration of the clan ancestors, and then more than 1,000 years later, they went north from Southeast Asia with Buddhism and returned to the Dai area in Yunnan, China. As for the relationship between ancient folk legends and the Jataka stories, the famous ancient philologist, historian, and writer Mr. Ji Xianlin explained it clearly. In his "Preface to the Jataka Stories", he said: "Most of them (referring to the folk legends collected by Buddhism) have nothing to do with Buddhism, and some are even very worldly. However, Buddhists don't care about these. They take the ready-made stories and just designate a person, a god, and an animal in the story as Bodhisattvas in a fixed form, and a Jataka story is created." Therefore, the source of the Jataka story also comes from ancient folk legends. "Zhaoshutun" is circulated throughout the Dai area, in two forms: oral rhyme and written rhyme. The oral rhyme is mainly circulated in the Dai areas such as Yuanjiang, Jinping, Xinping, etc. where Buddhism has not yet reached; the written rhyme manuscript written in Dai language is mainly circulated in Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Menglian, Jinggu and other areas where Buddhism is believed. The core content of the two is basically the same, with some changes in details. There are no Buddhist temples or Dai Buddhist scriptures in the Dai areas of Yuanjiang, Jinping, Xinping, etc. The "Peacock Princess" sung orally does not show any trace of being adapted from the story of the Buddha's Jataka. It is likely to have evolved from an ancient myth. The Dai poetry manuscripts circulated in Xishuangbanna and other areas are undoubtedly based on the story of the tree swallowing in the Buddha's Jataka story and recreated. If we explore further, we will find that the story of the bird goddess in the Buddha's Jataka comes from ancient folk legends. In this way, we can draw another conclusion: the prototype of the story of the long poem "Zhaoshutun" ultimately originated from the story of the "Bird Clothes Goddess" in ancient times. Since the southern part of China and the Indochina Peninsula in ancient times was a common cultural area, this ancient story is also a spiritual product created by the ancestors of this common cultural area. On June 7, 2008, Zhaoshutun and Namunono were approved by the State Council to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.