Description
Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel
Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La
as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the
western end of the Kunlun Mountains.
Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical
Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel,
the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the
normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The name also evokes the imagery
of the exoticism of the Orient.
In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, the existence of seven such places is mentioned as
Nghe-Beyul Khembalung. Khembalung is one of several beyuls (hidden lands similar to Shangri-La)
believed to have been created by Padmasambhava in the 9th century as idyllic, sacred places of
refuge for Buddhists during times of strife (Reinhard, 1978).
