The Search For Shangri-La

The Search For Shangri-La PDF Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349142181
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea of a hidden refuge, a paradise far from the stresses of modern life, has universal appeal. In 1932 the writer James Hilton coined the word 'Shangri-La' to describe such a place, when he gave that name to a hidden valley in the Himalayas in his novel LOST HORIZON. In THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA acclaimed traveller and writer Charles Allen explores the myth behind the story. He tracks down the sources that Hilton drew upon in writing his popular romance, and then sets out to discover what lies behind the legend that inspired him. In the course of a lively and amusing account of his four journeys into Tibet, Allen also gives us a controversial new reading of the country's early history, shattering our notions of Tibet as a Buddhist paradise and restoring the mysterious pre-Buddhist religion of Bon to its rightful place in Tibetan culture. He also locates the lost kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself: in an astounding gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins.

The Search For Shangri-La

The Search For Shangri-La PDF Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349142181
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea of a hidden refuge, a paradise far from the stresses of modern life, has universal appeal. In 1932 the writer James Hilton coined the word 'Shangri-La' to describe such a place, when he gave that name to a hidden valley in the Himalayas in his novel LOST HORIZON. In THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA acclaimed traveller and writer Charles Allen explores the myth behind the story. He tracks down the sources that Hilton drew upon in writing his popular romance, and then sets out to discover what lies behind the legend that inspired him. In the course of a lively and amusing account of his four journeys into Tibet, Allen also gives us a controversial new reading of the country's early history, shattering our notions of Tibet as a Buddhist paradise and restoring the mysterious pre-Buddhist religion of Bon to its rightful place in Tibetan culture. He also locates the lost kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself: in an astounding gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins.

Finding Shangri-La

Finding Shangri-La PDF Author: Mahendra Singh
Publisher: Roli Books
ISBN: 9788195124879
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ancient adventurers have often spoken of a mystical land of perfect harmony and eternal bliss nestled in the forbidding remoteness of the Tibetan Plateau - the legendary Shangri La. No one has managed to pinpoint its exact location on a map. In the local belief system, Shangri La may well not be a place at all but rather the mental state of a pure and exalted body, speech and mind. Fascinated by this concept, the photographer and author Mahendra Singh set out on his quest. Most of it currently occupied by China, the Tibetan Plateau has been significantly distorted over time under state pressure. Therefore, the author traveled through some of the last surviving remnants of authentic Tibetan life found in the valleys of Ladakh and Spiti; often and justifiably referred to as 'Little Tibet'. He traveled through remote valleys, ventured across stark landscapes and visited the improbable green oases of human habitation, culture and religion, to bring together this comprehensive portrait of the region through his vivid photographs and meticulously researched text. This book aims to take the readers on a journey of discovery and reflection, and hopefully, a little further along the path to finding their own Shangri La.

In Search of Shangri-La

In Search of Shangri-La PDF Author: Michael McRae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the 19th century, Westerners have laid siege to the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet. The colonial British saw it as a strategic prize, 1920's botanist Frank Kingdon-Ward saw it as a geographical puzzle to solve and Oxford educated American Tibet scholar Ian Baker (discoverer of the hidden waterfall in the 1990s) saw it as a hidden Buddhist realm. More recently kayakers have seen the rapids as the last great whitewater challenge. They paid with their lives. For all, the reality was unimportant. All heaped their own perceptions on the mythology that had come before. This title combines adventure, travel, history and myth to tell the story of the search for the hidden falls of Shangri-la.

The Search For Shangri-La

The Search For Shangri-La PDF Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 0349142181
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea of a hidden refuge, a paradise far from the stresses of modern life, has universal appeal. In 1932 the writer James Hilton coined the word 'Shangri-La' to describe such a place, when he gave that name to a hidden valley in the Himalayas in his novel LOST HORIZON. In THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA acclaimed traveller and writer Charles Allen explores the myth behind the story. He tracks down the sources that Hilton drew upon in writing his popular romance, and then sets out to discover what lies behind the legend that inspired him. In the course of a lively and amusing account of his four journeys into Tibet, Allen also gives us a controversial new reading of the country's early history, shattering our notions of Tibet as a Buddhist paradise and restoring the mysterious pre-Buddhist religion of Bon to its rightful place in Tibetan culture. He also locates the lost kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself: in an astounding gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins.

Islamic Shangri-La

Islamic Shangri-La PDF Author: David G. Atwill
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520971337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Islamic Shangri-La transports readers to the heart of the Himalayas as it traces the rise of the Tibetan Muslim community from the 17th century to the present. Radically altering popular interpretations that have portrayed Tibet as isolated and monolithically Buddhist, David Atwill's vibrant account demonstrates how truly cosmopolitan Tibetan society was by highlighting the hybrid influences and internal diversity of Tibet. In its exploration of the Tibetan Muslim experience, this book presents an unparalleled perspective of Tibet's standing during the rise of post–World War II Asia.

Prisoners of Shangri-La

Prisoners of Shangri-La PDF Author: Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648548X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
Intro -- Contents -- Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One: The Name -- Chapter Two: The Book -- Chapter Three: The Eye -- Chapter Four: The Spell -- Chapter Five: The Art -- Chapter Six: The Field -- Chapter Seven: The Prison -- Notes -- Index

The Search for the Panchen Lama

The Search for the Panchen Lama PDF Author: Isabel Hilton
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393321678
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this "chilling picture of the brutality of Chinese repression in Tibet" ("Wall Street Journal"), Hilton relates the 1995 kidnap and disappearance of a seven-year-old Tibetan boy believed to the the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama. 21 photos.

The Siege of Shangri-La

The Siege of Shangri-La PDF Author: Michael McRae
Publisher: Broadway Books
ISBN: 0767913922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
The story of the quest for a real-life Shangri-La in the darkest heart of the Himalayas– a century-long obsession to reach the sacred hidden center of one of the world's last uncharted realms. At the far eastern end of the Himalayas in Tibet lies the Tsangpo River Gorge, known as “the great romance of geography” during the nineteenth century's golden age of exploration. Here the mighty 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 Siege of Shangri-La tells the story of this fabled land's exploration as both a geographical and spiritual destination–and chronicles the discovery at the end of the last millennium of the truth behind the myths and rumors about it. Veteran journalist Michael McRae traces the gorge's exploratory history from the clandestine missions of surveyor-spies called pundits and botanical expeditions of naturalists in the early twentieth century to the recent investigations of scholars, adventurers, and pilgrims seeking the "Hidden Falls," of the Tsangpo, which purportedly rivals Niagara in size and serves as the gateway to paradise. Each explorer's narrative provides increasing evidence of why the gorge has been mythologized in Eastern and Western lore as one of the world's most alluring blanks on the map–and a supreme test of human will. Taking readers on a guided tour of the gorge's landscape, physical and metaphysical, McRae presents an insightful look at the pursuit of glory and enlightenment that has played out in this mysterious land with sometimes disastrous consequences. The Siege of Shangri-La is a fascinating journey through the inner recesses of a remote, mystical world and the minds of those who have attempted to reach it. From the Hardcover edition.

Asian Absences

Asian Absences PDF Author: Wolfgang Büscher
Publisher: Armchair Traveller (Haus Publi
ISBN: 9781906598761
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This contemplative and lyrical narrative of a journey from Copenhagen to Eastern Asia evades simple conclusions to vividly capture the conflicting emotional and intellectual responses of a stranger in distant lands, evoking both the exotic wonder and threatening otherness of unfamiliar cultures and repeatedly challenging mythic assumptions about the East. Via an abandoned hospital for lepers, a hallucinogenic mountain pilgrimage with shamans in Kathmandu, and the "beautifully odd" curiositiesof Tokyo's metropolis, Wolfgang Büscher takes his reader on a journey of enlightenment that is both troubling and beautiful. Wolfgang Büscher is an award-winning journalist who writes for theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others. He won the Theodor-Wolff Prize for Reportage in 2002.

Lost in Shangri-La

Lost in Shangri-La PDF Author: Mitchell Zuckoff
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062087142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush andimpenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame withgreat gams, for heaven's sake), a startling rescue mission. . . . This is atrue story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly compelling and deeplysatisfying read!" —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoffunleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War IIrescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost Cityof Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfullyrecounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery injungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.