Shangri-La


In Search of Myths & Heroes

People have been visiting Kailash - Mansarovar for centuries. Almost all the major passes of Uttaranchal Himalayas lead to Kailash.

Michael Wood's search for Shangri-La takes him on a thrilling trek through India, Nepal and Tibet. The tale of the magical hidden valley of Shangri-La was popularized in the 1930s by James Hilton in his novel, Lost Horizon. But, the story of a lost kingdom behind the Himalayas free from war and suffering is descended from a much older Indian myth. When Europeans first caught wind of the tale back in the 16th Century, they set about trying to discover it.


To find the truth behind the legend, Michael follows their track on foot through the Maoist controlled lands of Western Nepal and then on into Tibet. On the way he visits Mount Kailash — the sacred center of the world for all Hindus and Buddhists. Eventually, after hundreds of miles on dirt roads, he reaches the fantastic ruins of the lost city of Tsaparang, which he suggests is the real inspiration behind the myth.

The mythical land of Shangri-La is the novelist James Hilton's fictional account of the legendary Tibetan paradise Shambala. In Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, he changes the name of the paradise to Shangri-La. This lost Tibetan paradise is a valley cut off from the world. The wisdom of the human race is being conserved there against the threat of imminent catastrophe. Hilton's novel was turned into a hit Hollywood movie and the name Shangri-La came to mean a lost paradise.

The legend of this lost valley is one of the most ancient Tibetan myths, and one of the most striking myths of a sacred landscape, a landscape that inspires stories itself. Traditionally, Shambala is located in the Himalayas, in the remotest part of Tibet, on a high plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountain peaks.

The myth of a lost Tibetan paradise came to the notice of Europeans in the 1580s, when travellers to the court of the court of the Moghul Emperor Akbar heard strange and wondrous tales of a remote Himalayan world. Although the story is told in a Buddhist text and is considered Tibetan, the tale seems to have been recorded first in India in AD 962. The tale is that there is a land behind the Himalayas full of peace and harmony where an isolated people live in accordance with Buddhist precepts preparing for the day when the world will be ready to live in peace. The kingdom is in the shadow of a white crystal mountain, approachable only through a ring of peaks. Next to the mountain are a lake and a palace. Here the wisdom of humanity is conserved, ready to save the world when needed.

The present Dalai Lama says this about Shambala:

Nowadays, no one knows where Shambala is. Although it is said to exist, people cannot see it, or communicate with it in an ordinary way. Some people say it is located in another world, others that it is an ideal land, a place of the imagination. Some say it was a real place, which cannot now be found. Some believe there are openings into that world which may be accessed from this. Whatever the truth of that, the search for Shambala traditionally begins as an outer journey that becomes a journey of inner exploration and discovery.

Today, Shangri-La is seen both as a place, and as an era of enlightened consciousness. The Tibetans say that the need to find paradise elsewhere is it what keeps us from having it. Wherever Shangri-La is, the search for it continues.

Try to locate these places with Google Earth. Look in Western Tibet for Mount Kailash which is also called the Crystal Mountain, and the Sacred Lake that are around 25,000 to 21,000 feet above sea level, respectively.

Examine the Tibetan myth of Shambala and the journey of Antonio Andrade, a Portuguese missionary sent to find it during the 16th Century by the Moghul emperor Akbar.

In retracing Andrade's route, Wood embarks on an extraordinary journey through India, Nepal, and Tibet to reach a village near Lake Mansarovar and Mt. Kailash, some of the holiest places in the Buddhist and Hindu religions. Here he discovers what some might classify as Shangri-La, the abandoned city of Tsaperang and its two great temples that were once home to the King of Gugay.

Hint to Shangri-La