Shangri-La

Page 2 of 6

• 1. Origins of Shangri-La
• 2. Tale of 'Lost Horizon'
• 3. Andrade's tale
• 4. Shambala
• 5. Shangri-La today
• 6. Find out more
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Tale of 'Lost Horizon'

In the novel, a group of Westerners is rescued by plane from war and chaos in Central Asia, only to crash-land in a remote valley surrounded by the highest mountains in the world. The location of the fictional lost valley is never precisely pinpointed, but on its last fateful flight the plane appears to be heading northeast from Afghanistan across the Karakorum mountains, part of the Himalayan range, and Hilton clearly imagined that it landed somewhere in the then unexplored far west of Tibet.

'It was a repository of all the cultural treasures of the planet, and its inhabitants were opposed to all violence and materialism.'

He tells us that in the valley there was a lamasery, headed by a 200-year-old Capuchin lama. It was a repository of all the cultural treasures of the planet, and its inhabitants were opposed to all violence and materialism. This lamasery stood in the shadow of a magnificent white mountain, 'the loveliest mountain on earth ... an almost perfect cone of snow, a dazzling pyramid so radiant, so serenely poised that it scarcely seemed to be real'.

But on what older tale was this exotic story based? Did Hilton have an actual place in mind? Was there indeed a real Shangri-La? And why does the myth of an earthly paradise seem to have such a hold on the human imagination?

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Published: 03-02-2005