Shangri-La

Page 3 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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Andrade's tale

The tale of a lost kingdom in the region of the Tibetan mountains first came to Western attention nearly four centuries ago. And like many a tale of hidden treasure, it starts with a mysterious map - this one lost, then rediscovered a hundred years ago in Calcutta. It was part of a remarkable manuscript that contained the autobiography of a 16th-century Western missionary at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar.

At Akbar's time India still reigned glorious at the centre of the civilised world, but the winds were changing and the great power of Asian lands was just beginning to reduce, under pressure from the modernity of Europe. In partial response to this shifting world, Akbar gathered scholars of all races around him, hoping to find the common basis of all religions, in order to remove the sources of religious conflict for the good of humankind. As he put it:

It now becomes clear ... that it cannot be right to assert the truth of one faith above any other ... In this way we may perhaps again open the door whose key has been lost.

Thus in his court congregated Hindus, Yogis and Sadhus from all corners of his empire, as well as visiting Christian monks and pilgrims from western lands. This was the moment when Westerners first heard accounts of what lay beyond the Himalayan mountains, the very first time that Tibet entered the consciousness of Europeans.

One visiting Jesuit priest summarised the strange stories he heard at the court of Akbar in an essay, and sketched an accompanying map. On his map the area of Tibet is depicted as a great white blank, except for one place, labelled 'Manasarovar lacus' (Lake Manasarovar), with next to it a tantalising scribbled note saying, 'Here it is said Christians live'.

The priest who penned the map was old, and incapable of undertaking a dangerous mission across high mountain passes in search of an obscure community of Christians. But his successor, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary named Antonio Andrade, was galvanised by the tale, and determined to go in search of these people.

Andrade set out from Akbar's court, armed with the map, and at first followed yogis and wandering pilgrims on the road across the mountains. The terrain soon became hostile, but Andrade did eventually find an impressive and wealthy kingdom - although no Christians lived there - and his account of his adventurous journey was rediscovered in Calcutta in the 19th century. It was republished in 1926 under the title Discovery of Tibet, and Hilton's Lost Horizon obviously owes much to this work.

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Published: 03-02-2005