James Hilton was but dreaming of a station that humans have yearned for since they first learned to yearn . A Eden of sorts . A paradise . Utopia . Xanadu . The Garden of Eden . Shambhala .
Hilton , a popular English author in the first one-half of the twentieth C , refer his glad piazza Shangri - La , and he made it wondrous and ghostlike , insert it high into the mountains in an exotic part of northwest Tibet . It was the setting of his 1933 dangerous undertaking novel " Lost Horizon , " which like a shot became a worldwide best seller . It was also made into amajor Hollywood film — the legendary Frank Capra address and Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt starred — in 1937 .
From the moment " Lost Horizon " strike bookstall ledge , Shangri - La became synonymous with Utopia . Back then , it was an apotheosis , a position to break away to during a meter when the real world had just been througha global warand theGreat Depression . Since then , the simple-minded idea of the place has sparked countless pilgrim’s journey to Tibet , journeying of religious belief and perseverance , of Leslie Townes Hope and distant promise , of supposed enlightenment and , sometimes , disappointment .
It ’s kind of an amazing phenomenon , consider that the place does n’t exist . And it never has .
Well , until latterly , that is .
The Real Shangri-La
Hilton reportedly did most of the research for his novel in the British Museum Library , not far from his house in the northeastern part of London . He never really went to Tibet . Instead , he charter inspiration for Shangri - La from another utopian dream , a place have it away for C as Shambhala .
" There was one kind of very , very illogical version of the Shambhala myth that Hilton read in one of the Catholic explorer ’s Hagiographa . But it was n’t at all clear , " saysEd Bernbaum , who remonstrate on relative religion and mythology and save " The style To Shambhala " in 1980 . " It is this sort of oecumenical theme . And at that time , Tibet was pretty much undiscovered . So , if you ’re choke to look for a hidden Zion , that was an ideal place to do it . "
Shambhala is a TibetanBuddhistlegend about a utopian paradise far in the northern mountain of Asia . It is a spiritual place where hoi polloi of all religions and backcloth live together in musical harmony . It ’s also enounce to be the position from which , when war and malevolent engulf the rest of the man , a loss leader will go forth to overcome the forces of chaos and usher in a new age of public security and happiness .
Shambhala grows out of the Buddhist teaching ofKalachakra , or the Wheel of Time , which states that the center of the universe is Mount Meru ( sometimes called Mount Sumeru ) , read to be well northerly of Tibet .
" People sort of look at Tibet as this orphic , Utopian variety of place , " Bernbaum say , " and the Tibetans themselves looked even far north for that Utopia , Shambhala . "
Shangri-La Today
If Hilton ( who died in 1954 ) was indeed modeling Shangri - La after the Buddhist teachings of Shambhala , it would probably hurt him to learn what has happen to his imaginary wonderland .
It has become real . Too actual .
In 2001 , the Formosan government — which has ascertain Tibet since the late 1950s — vary the name of Zhondian county to Shangri - La for a simple role : to cash in on tourist dollars . Many areas in China had been compete for the right to change their names to Shangri - La and it took nearly a decade to adjudicate on a success . Zhondian bring home the bacon in what The Guardian called in 2006 " one of the most intrepid rebranding usage in chronicle . "
Now , the larger area of Shangri - La boasts a Shangri - La Resort , a Hilton Garden Inn Shangri - La , and an airport with daily flights to Beijing , Shanghai and Lhasa ( the capital of China ’s Tibet Autonomous Region , in the warmheartedness of what westerner know as Tibet ) . Visitors can tour thelargest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan province . And when they ’re done , they can gulp down a brewage at the Shangri - La Beer Bar ( " Beer Made in Heaven . " )
Tibet and the newly constitute Shangri - La are a draw for reasons other than the tourist trap , of course . Tibet is get laid , after all , as the " Roof of the World . " It share the highest top in the macrocosm , Mount Everest , with neighboring Nepal ( though that ’s a long elbow room from Shangri - La ) . The area ’s natural beauty is breathless , which make it a destination for out-of-door fan that is especially pop with Chinese tourer . ( It ’s surd for Westerners to secure visas to get there . )
But is this the Shangri - La that James Hilton envisioned ? Is it what modern traveller expect ?
That , it seems , is probably up to the Pilgrim Father .
" There are dissimilar manner of go to Shambhala , " Bernbaum says . " To me , what I found most interesting was the symbolism of it . It sort of ruminate an inner journey . "
