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Shambhala or Shangri-la

Of all the countries in the Far East, Tibet has perhaps the greatest aura of mysticism. For many Westerners "Shangri-La" exists somewhere in the far reaches of the Tibetan Himalayas. These are all lost kingdoms of sorts - and some get the myths mixed up, whether by accident or by design, resulting in a kind of mythological stew.

Some of the ancient texts describing the Zhang Zhung kingdom also claim the Sutlej valley near Mount Kailas was Shambhala, from which James Hilton derived "Shangri La". When Padmasambhava introduced Buddhism to Tibet in the 7th century, he incorporated into the new Buddhist doctrine many of the older folk beliefs and teachings of the Bon religion of Tibet practiced before his arrival. The Tibetan tradition of hidden valleys (beyul) may be traced at least as far back as Padmasambhava, who foreseeing future periods of chaos established a number of sacred sites where people could seek refuge in times of trouble. These ‘hidden valleys’ are scattered throughout the Himalaya and Tibet. The Langtang Valley, is one of these valleys; it is known in Tibetan as Nam Go Da Gam, or the Heavenly Gate of Half-Moon Form.

The Bka-agyur (sounded Kan-gyur in Tibetan) and the Bstan-agyur (pronounced Ten-gyur) are assuredly the classics of Tibetan literature. Labyrinthine encyclopaedia, these two prodigious works comprise a complete library of treatises on every conceivable subject. The 225 volumes of the Tengyur are kept in their original Tibetan coverings, each volume having the leaves loose like a pack of cards, rolled up in yellow cloth, the parcel being then placed, sandwich-wise, between two heavy boards. The Kangyur and the Tengyur are said to have been first put into shape circa 1340 AD. One of the most entertaining, and certainly the most popular, work in the Tengyur, is that known as 'A Guide for the Journey to 'Shambhala,' contained in one of the concluding volumes of Section III. Shambhala is a supernal city, supposed to exist on the borders of Mongolia; and every Mongol pilgrim visiting Lhasa prayed the great deities and the living celebrities of the place to grant that at his next re-birth he may be born in the blessed groves of Shambhala. This work is probably of Tibetan authorship.

Shambhala; called in Tibetan bde'-hbyung, vulgo dejung ('origin of happiness'), is a fabulous country in the north, the capital of which was Kalapa, a very splendid city, and the residence of many illustrious kings of Shambhala. It was situated beyond the Sita River, and the augmentation of the length of the days from the vernal equinox to midsummer amounted to twelve Indian hours (gharis), or four hours forty-eight minutes.

The Sita is one of the four mighty rivers of the Hindu mythological geography, into which the Ganges breaks after falling upon earth. It is regarded in the Vishnu Purana as flowing eastward, and would find its actual representative in the Tarim, continued to the ocean in the Hoang-ho; and the Chinese traveller Hwen-thsang does identify it thus. Csoma de Koros, however, interprets it in the Tibetan legend as the Jaxartes, and calculates the latitude of Kdlapa as between 450 and 500.

According to some of the Tibetan books, Dazung, a king of Shambhala, visited Sakya Muni, and the latter foretold to him a great series of the kings to succeed him, followed by the rise of Mahommedanism, and then by the general re-establishment and diffusion of Buddhism,— a prophecy which one is sometimes tempted to think is receiving its accomplishment in modern Europe. Some of the Tantrika doctrines were said in Tibet to have come from Shambhala.

Sambhala is in Hindu mythology the place where Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, is to appear. It is identified by some with Sambhal, a very ancient Hindu town in Rohilkhand, which occurs in Ptolemy's Tables. We learn from Ibn Batuta that the last of the Mongol emperors of China sent an embassy to Sultan Mahommed Tughlak of Dehli, to obtain permission to rebuild a temple at Samhal, near the foot of Himalya, whither his (Buddhist) subjects used to go on pilgrimage. So it is probable that Sambhal may have been associated with these Tibetan legends, though lying in a wrong direction from Tibet.

Shangri-La is the Westernization of Shambhala. For thousands of years, stories were told about an inaccessible garden paradise hidden in the icy peaks and secluded valleys of the Himalayas. Called by some Shambhala or Shangri-la, it was believed to be a Buddhist “pure land” where all the residents had traveled far along the path towards enlightenment. The land where the pure lived forever among jewel lakes, wish-fulfilling trees, and speaking stones, fired the imagination of actual explorers and mystical travelers. This myth was particularly popular in the 19th century during the “Age of Empire” when people went in search of exotic and mystical lands (an adventure for wealthy Europeans, called the “Grand Tour”).

Shangri-La was a fictional paradise in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon. Author James Hilton describes a place where the residents are happy, isolated, and live many years beyond the normal lifespan. One of four Western passengers abducted during an airplane hijacking, Hugh Conway, recounts the group's sojourn at the mysterious lamasery of Shangri-La in the mountains of Tibet. Hugh describes Shangri-La's unusual inhabitants and their quest, and the feelings of peace and contentment he enjoyed there. The aged Lama in James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" explained that Shangri La grew out of the need for some place to preserve beauty. James Hilton, writer of novels and screenplays, was known the world over for his "Lost Horizon,"an imaginative and beautifully written tale of a mythical never-never land in the high mists somewhere beyond the Himalaya mountains. His was the rare distinction of adding a new name to our language, for "Shangri-La" came to mean any distant Utopia, unattainable but ever sought after.

The myth of Shangri-la, as described in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon", is believed by a number of explorers to have been geographically inspired by the deepest gorges and waterfalls of the Tsangpo. The Yarlung Tsangpo is the highest major river in the world, with an average elevation of about 4000 meters. At least two peaks within the image area rise to over 7000 meters: Namche Barwa at 7756 meters and Gyala Peri at 7150 meters. Further downstream, the river widens and becomes the Brahmaputra. The Tsangpo River Gorge lies at the far eastern end of the Himalayas in Tibet. Known as “the great romance of geography” during the nineteenth century's golden age of exploration, the Tsangpo funnels into an impenetrable canyon three miles deep, walled off from the outside world by twenty-five thousand foot peaks. Like the earthly paradise of Shangri-La immortalized in James Hilton's classic 1933 novel Lost Horizon, the Tsangpo River Gorge is a refuge revered for centuries by Tibetan Buddhists – and later in Western imagination – as a sanctuary in times of strife as well as a gateway to nirvana. The "Hidden Falls," of the Tsangpo purportedly rivalled Niagara in size and served as the gateway to paradise.

On April 18, 1942, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, B-25 Mitchell bombers were launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, and successfully bombed Tokyo. Japanese military leaders had no idea the bombers had been launched from a carrier (a revolutionary concept at the time). Strategists thought the attack must have originated from American bases on Midway or in the Aleutian Islands. When asked from where the bombers had originated, Roosevelt jokingly replied "Shangri-la," the fictional, hidden paradise in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon. The attack itself caused little damage, but boosted American morale, and perhaps more importantly, led the Japanese to revise their strategy.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was accustomed to seeking relief from hot Washington, DC summers and relaxing on weekends. The muggy climate of Washington, DC, was considered detrimental to his health, affecting his sinuses. A new retreat, a place to relax, within a 100 mile radius of Washington, DC and in the cool mountain air was sought. Several sites were considered but Camp Hi-Catoctin in the Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area was selected after the President's first visit on April 22, 1942. A camp was already built on the site and the estimated conversion cost was $18,650. It was also almost 10 degrees cooler than Washington. The camp for federal employee's families became the camp of one federal employee, the President of the United States. Roosevelt quickly renamed the camp to "Shangri-La". President Eisenhower renamed the retreat "Camp David", after he took office in 1953, after his grandson. Camp David continues to serve as the Presidential Retreat.

Zhongdian, a mountain region of southwest China, was later renamed Shangri-La (Xianggelila), based on its claim to have inspired Hilton's book. While the region is as stunning as British author James Hilton described in his 1933 novel “Lost Horizon,” it is equally remote.