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Shangri-La
Shangri-La is a fictional place in Asia's Kunlun Mountains (昆仑山), Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by English author James Hilton. Hilton portrays 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 – an enduringly 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. Ancient Tibetan scriptures mention the existence of seven such places as ''Nghe-Beyul Khembalung''. Khembalung is one of several Utopia ''beyuls'' (hidden lands similar to Shangri-La) which Tibetan Buddhists believe that Padmasambhava established in the 9th century CE as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shangri-La County
Shangri-La (, Tibetan: Gyalthang) is a county-level city in Northwestern Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China and is the location of the seat of the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, bordering Sichuan to the northwest, north, and east. Name Shangri-La was formerly called Zhongdian County () but was renamed on 17 December 2001 and upgraded into a county-level city on 16 December 2014 as Shangri-La (other spellings: Semkyi'nyida, Xianggelila, or Xamgyi'nyilha) after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the 1933 James Hilton novel ''Lost Horizon'', in an effort to promote tourism in the area. Formerly, the Tibetan population referred to the city by its traditional name Gyalthang or Gyaitang ( bo, རྒྱལ་ཐང།; Wylie: rgyal thang, ZWPY: Gyaitang), meaning "Royal plains". The Chinese name of the county seat, Jiantang (), reflects the pronunciation of Gyalthang. In the early morning of January 11, 2014, a fire broke out in the 1,000-year-old Dukezong Tibeta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhongdian
Shangri-La (, Tibetan: Gyalthang) is a county-level city in Northwestern Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China and is the location of the seat of the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, bordering Sichuan to the northwest, north, and east. Name Shangri-La was formerly called Zhongdian County () but was renamed on 17 December 2001 and upgraded into a county-level city on 16 December 2014 as Shangri-La (other spellings: Semkyi'nyida, Xianggelila, or Xamgyi'nyilha) after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the 1933 James Hilton novel ''Lost Horizon'', in an effort to promote tourism in the area. Formerly, the Tibetan population referred to the city by its traditional name Gyalthang or Gyaitang ( bo, རྒྱལ་ཐང།; Wylie: rgyal thang, ZWPY: Gyaitang), meaning "Royal plains". The Chinese name of the county seat, Jiantang (), reflects the pronunciation of Gyalthang. In the early morning of January 11, 2014, a fire broke out in the 1,000-year-old Dukezong Tibetan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Horizon
''Lost Horizon'' is a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a film, also called '' Lost Horizon'', in 1937 by director Frank Capra. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery located high in the mountains of Tibet. Plot summary Overview Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity. The prologue and epilogue are narrated by a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in Afghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the neurologist that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hilton (novelist)
James Hilton (9 September 1900 – 20 December 1954) was an English novelist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his novels ''Lost Horizon'', '' Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' and '' Random Harvest'', as well as co-writing screenplays for the films '' Camille'' (1936) and '' Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), the latter earning him an Academy Award. Early life Hilton was born in Leigh, Lancashire, the son of John Hilton, the headmaster of Chapel End School in Walthamstow. He was educated at the Monoux School Walthamstow till 1914, then The Leys School, Cambridge, and then at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he wrote his first novel and was awarded an honours degree in English literature. He started work as a journalist, first for the ''Manchester Guardian'', then reviewing fiction for ''The Daily Telegraph''. Career Hilton's first novel, ''Catherine Herself,'' was published in 1920 when he was still an undergraduate. The next 11 years were difficult for him, and it was not until 1931 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, autonomous regions of Guangxi, and Tibet as well as Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. Yunnan is China's fourth least developed province based on disposable income per capita in 2014. Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the northwest and low elevations in the southeast. Most of the population lives in the eastern part of the province. In the west, the altitude can vary from the mountain peaks to river valleys by as much as . Yunnan is rich in natural resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. Of the approximately 30,000 species of higher plants in China, Yunnan has perhaps 17,000 or more. Yunnan's reserves of aluminium, lead, zinc a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lijiang City
Lijiang (), also known as Likiang, is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China. It has an area of and had a population of 1,253,878 at the 2020 census whom 288,787 lived in the built-up area (metro) made of Gucheng District. Lijiang is famous for its UNESCO Heritage Site, the Old Town of Lijiang, which contains a mixture of different historical architecture styles and a complex, ancient water-supply system. History 100,000 years ago, the Lijiang people of the late Paleolithic sapiens were active here. The discovery of cave paintings in the Jinsha River Valley and numerous new stone tools, bronzes and ironsmiths prove that Lijiang is one of the important areas of ancient human activities in southwest China. The Baisha Old Town was the political, commercial and cultural center for the local Naxi people and other ethnic groups for 400 years from the year 658 AD to 1107AD. The Dabaoji Palace of the Baisha Fresco, very close to the Baisha Naxi Hand-m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majority regions surrounding the Himalayan areas of India (such as Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and a minority in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), in much of Central Asia, in the southern Siberian regions such as Tuva, and in Mongolia. Tibetan Buddhism evolved as a form of Mahāyāna Buddhism stemming from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism (which also included many Vajrayāna elements). It thus preserves many Indian Buddhist tantric practices of the post-Gupta early medieval period (500 to 1200 CE), along with numerous native Tibetan developments. In the pre-modern era, Tibetan Buddhism spread outside of Tibet primarily due to the influence of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), founded by Kublai Khan, which had ruled China, M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hunza Valley
The Hunza Valley ( bsk, , Wakhi: '; ur, ) is a mountainous valley in the northern part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, formed by the Hunza River, bordering Ishkoman to the northwest, Shigar to the southeast, Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor to the north, and the Xinjiang region of China to the northeast. Geography The Hunza Valley is a mountainous valley in the northern part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, formed by the Hunza River, bordering Ishkoman to the northwest, Shigar to the southeast, Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor to the north and the Xinjiang region of China to the northeast. The Hunza Valley floor is at an elevation of 2,438 meters (7,999 feet). Geographically, the Hunza Valley consists of three regions: Upper Hunza ( Gojal), Central Hunza, and Lower Hunza ( Shinaki). History Buddhism, and to a lesser extent, Bön, were the main religions in the area. The region has several surviving Buddhist archaeological sites, such as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradise
In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfillment. Paradise is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christianity and Islam, Heaven is a paradisiacal relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the underworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. In Buddhism, par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary sources (a) through (d), reflecting due weight in the coverage. Although "controlled" and "held" are also applied neutrally to the names of the disputants or to the regions administered by them, as evidenced in sources (e) through (g) below, "held" is also considered politicized usage, as is the term "occupied," (see (h) below): (a) (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent ... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the India ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beyul
According to the beliefs of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Beyul () are hidden valleys often encompassing hundreds of square kilometers, which Padmasambhava blessed as refuges. Tertöns may reveal them from terma at specific and appropriate times. Their locations were kept on scrolls (lamyig or neyig) hidden under rocks and inside caves, monasteries and stupas. They are places where physical and spiritual worlds overlap and Tantric practice effectiveness increases with multiple perception dimensions. Padmasambhava assigned deities to protect the beyul. Protective forces manifest as snowstorms, mists and snow leopards. Buddhist texts indicate beyul are discovered when the planet is approaching destruction and the world becomes too corrupt for spiritual practice. They describe valleys reminiscent of paradise, which can only be reached with enormous hardship. Pilgrims who travel to these wild and distant places often recount extraordinary experiences similar to those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kunlun Mountains
The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the broadest sense, the chain forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin. The exact definition of Kunlun Mountains varies over time. Older sources used Kunlun to mean the mountain belt that runs across the center of China, that is, Altyn Tagh along with the Qilian and Qin Mountains. Recent sources have the Kunlun range forming most of the south side of the Tarim Basin and then continuing east, south of the Altyn Tagh. Sima Qian (''Records of the Grand Historian'', scroll 123) says that Emperor Wu of Han sent men to find the source of the Yellow River and gave the name Kunlun to the mountains at its source. The name seems to have originated as a semi-mythical location in the classical Chinese text ''Classic of Moun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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