Secrets of the Ancient World, Shangri-La: The Himalayan Journals of M.G. Hawking

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About Secrets Of The Ancient World, Shangri-La: The

Explore the first modern account of the reality of an extraordinary secret that has endured from the very threshold of history, the Fabled Lost World of Shangri-La.Depicted in the novel Lost Horizon (Hilton, 1933), the concept for Shangri-La was inspired by the accounts and descriptions of Shambhala that are so prevalent in the ancient wisdom traditions of cultures throughout the Himalayan regions of Asia and beyond.Scholars relate that the 4000 year-old scriptures of the pre-Tibetan Zhang Zhung culture are the earliest extant references to this mysterious realm, yet it is represented in a wide range of ancient texts: the pre-Buddhist B’on writings, the Kalki lore, the Puranas, in the earliest texts of the Kalachakra Laghutantra, and in the even more ancient Kalachakra Mulatantra (c. 900 BC).The Zhang Zhung and Tibetan scriptures refer to the hidden sanctuary as Shambhala I lam-yig, B’on treaties as Olmolungring, Hindu histories as Aryavarth, Chinese as Hsi Tien, and Russian traditions as Belovoyde. In the Western world, it has of course become best known as Shambhala, Shamballa, or Shangri-La.In an esoteric treatise composed in the early 1500s by Ensapa Lobsang Döndrup, the Third Panchen Lama describes his extraordinary visit to a land of wise masters hidden in the Himalayas. A rare manuscript written in 1592 by Antonio Monserrate, a Spanish missionary to the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar, speaks of his experiences in a remote valley in the high mountains where great sages reside. A remarkably similar account is found as recently as the late 1700s, written by the esteemed Sixth Panchen Lama, Lobsang Palden Yeshe.On an extended trek into a closed and largely unexplored inner region of the majestic Himalayan wilderness, in an isolated v