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47-569: Densely forested with grass plains, its convergence of six valleys and four rivers supported independent Kham polities of Tibetan warrior kingdoms together with Tibetan Buddhist monastic centers. The early trading route between Central Tibet and China traveled through Kham, and Kham is said to be the inspiration for Shangri-La in James Hilton's novel. Settled as Tibet's eastern frontier in the 7th century, King Songtsen Gampo built temples along its eastern border. In 1939, an eastern area of Kham

94-514: A New York Times gossip column in which he reveals that his cultural inspiration for Shangri-La, if it is anywhere, is more than 250 km north of Muli on the route travelled by Huc and Gabet. Between 2002 and 2004 a series of expeditions were led by author and film maker Laurence Brahm in western China which determined that the Shangri-La mythical location in Hilton's book Lost Horizon

141-544: 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 in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. Ancient Tibetan scriptures mention

188-654: The British Museum , particularly the travelogue of two French priests, Évariste Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet , to provide the Tibetan cultural and Buddhist spiritual inspiration for Shangri-La. Huc and Gabet travelled a round trip between Beijing and Lhasa in 1844–1846 on a route more than 250 kilometres (160 mi) north of Yunnan. Their famous travelogue, first published in French in 1850, went through many editions in many languages. A popular "condensed translation"

235-840: The Chinese Civil War . The Kuomintang formulated a plan where three Khampa divisions would be assisted by the Panchen Lama to oppose the Communists. Kuomintang intelligence reported that some Tibetan tusi chiefs and the Khampa Su Yonghe controlled 80,000 troops in Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet. They hoped to use them against the Communist army. The Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalists) also enlisted Khampas to join their military. The Chinese Kuomintang also sought

282-578: The Hor States , Litang , Degé , the Chakla and Batang , becoming the paramount power in the region. China sent troops in against Namgyal which were defeated in 1849, and additional troops were not dispatched. Chinese military posts were present along the trading route, but "did not have any authority over the native chiefs". By 1862, Namgyal blocked trade routes from China to Central Tibet, and sent troops into China. Local chieftains had appealed to both

329-580: The sky caves found there, in search of Shangri-La. His findings offer no proof that Shangri-La is or was real. Kingdom of Derge The Kingdom of Derge ( Tibetan : སྡེ་དགེ་ , Wylie : sde dge ; Chinese : 德格王國 ) was a large kingdom in Kham , whose estate was founded in the 13th century by the Gar Clan of Sonam Rinchen in present day Pelyul County. The Gar Clan traces its lineage to minister Gar Tongtsen at Songsten Gampo 's 7th century court, and

376-546: The British Military Expedition to Lhasa and subsequent retreat [and consequent power vacuum within Tibet] were primarily responsible". In 1932, an agreement signed between Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui and Tibetan forces formalized the partition of Kham into two regions: Eastern Kham, which was administered by Chinese forces, and Western Kham, which was administered by Tibet. Eastern Kham subsequently became

423-717: The Chinese provinces of Sichuan (16 counties), Yunnan (three counties), and Qinghai (6 counties) as well as the eastern portion of the Tibet Autonomous Region (25 counties). The people of Kham, the Khampas, are reputed warriors renowned for their marksmanship and horsemanship. References state many Khampas in the Hor States include mention of their Mongolian heritage. There are significant differences in traditions and beliefs—even physical appearance—between

470-635: The Governor of Xining , where he earned the nickname of "the Butcher of Kham". In 1905 or 1908 Zhao began executing monks and destroying many monasteries in Kham and Amdo , implementing an early "sinicization" of the region: He abolished the powers of the Tibetan local leaders and appointed Chinese magistrates in their places. He introduced new laws that limited the number of lamas and deprived monasteries of their temporal power and inaugurated schemes for having

517-722: The Hor States. In 1717, the Mongol Dzungar Khanate invaded Tibet and other Asian regions. The Qing Chinese army likewise invaded and defeated the Dzungars. This led to the redrawing of the Sino-Tibetan boundary of 1677, which had followed the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The frontier line changed in either 1725 or 1726 to follow the Dri River (Jinsha River, Upper Yangtze ), while the Kham region on

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564-529: The Imperial era, both Nyingma school and Bon monasteries were located, especially in Nyarong Valley , among pastoral and agricultural-based polities ruled by local chieftains, polities which included merchant as well as Mongol and Chinese populations. Notable Tibetan Buddhist art from this era, dating from 804 or 816, includes carved stone statues of Buddha Vairocana . Following a power struggle in

611-677: The Khampas help in defending Sichuan from Japan during World War 2, since the temporary capital was located there. A Khampa member of the Mongolian Tibetan Academy was Han Jiaxiang. 300 "Khampa bandits" were enlisted into the Kuomintang Consolatory Commission military in Sichuan, where they were part of the effort of the central government of China to penetrated and destabilize the local Han warlords such as Liu Wenhui. The Chinese government sought to exercise full control over frontier areas against

658-795: The Khampas, whose relationship with the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa were deteriorating badly. The Khampa revolutionary leader Pandatsang Rapga founded the Tibet Improvement Party to overthrow the Tibetan government and establish a Tibetan Republic as part of China. In addition to using the Khampa's against the Tibetan Government in Lhasa, the Chinese Kuomintang also used them against the Communists during

705-651: The Lhasa and the Qing Manchu governments for help against Namgyal. The Tibetan authorities sent an army in 1863, and defeated Namgyal then killed him at his Nyarong fort by 1865. Central Tibet reasserted its authority over the northern parts of Kham and established the Office of the Tibetan High Commissioner to govern. Tibet also reclaimed Nyarong, Degé and the Hor States north of Nyarong. China recalled their forces. It appears to have been accepted by

752-595: The Manchu Tongzhi Emperor . Then in 1896, the Qing Governor of Sichuan attempted to gain control of Nyarong valley during a military attack. After his defeat, the Qing agreed to the withdrawal of Chinese forces and the "territory was returned to the direct rule of Lhasa". From 1904 to 1911, China decided to reassert its control over the previously re-ceded section of Kham, and to push further into

799-603: The Muli monastery in this remote region was the model for James Hilton's Shangri-La, which they thought Hilton learned about from articles on this area in several National Geographic magazines in the late 1920s and early 1930s written by Austrian-American explorer Joseph Rock . Vaill completed a film based on their research, "Finding Shangri-La", which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. However, Michael McRae unearthed an obscure James Hilton interview from

846-520: The Nyingma school and for commissioning the printing its texts, including The Collected Tantras of the Nyingma . Degé became the capital of the kingdom in the 15th century under the reign of Lodro Tobden, the 31st in the line of the Derge kings. It was he who invited Thang Tong Gyalpo to establish the now renowned Gongchen Monastery in the region. The kingdom expanded during the 18th century under

893-545: The Qing, the Beijing-appointed amban Zhong Ying invaded Lhasa with the Chinese army in February 1910 in order to gain control of Tibet and establish direct Chinese rule. The 13th Dalai Lama escaped to British India , and returned before China surrendered via a letter from the amban to the Dalai Lama in the summer of 1912. On 13 February 1913, the Dalai Lama declared Tibet an independent nation, and announced

940-486: The actual area of control of China's Xikang province. The border between eastern and western Kham is the Upper Yangtze – Dri Chu in Tibetan and Jinsha Jiang respectively, in Chinese. Tenpay Gyaltsan, a Khampa who was 5 years old, was selected as the fifth Jamyang Hutuktu in 1921. The Kham Pandatsang family led the 1934 Khamba rebellion against the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The Kuomintang reached out to

987-630: The eastern bank became Qing domain. There, hereditary chieftains were bestowed honorific titles of tusi , and obligated to fight alongside the Qing army in other Kham battles between chieftains. Earlier in 1724, an area of Qinghai (Kokonor) was established within Do Kham. The eastern Kham Qing domain was later incorporated into neighboring Chinese provinces. In 1837, a minor chieftain Gompo Namgyal , of Nyarong in eastern Kham, began expanding his control regionally and launched offensives against

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1034-564: The end of the historic "priest-patron" relationship between Tibet and China. The amban and Chinese army were expelled, while other Chinese populations were given three years to depart. By late 1913, Kham and Amdo remained largely occupied by China. Tibet proposed re-establishing the border between Tibet and China at the Dri River during the Simla Conference with Britain and China, while Britain countered with another proposal which

1081-417: 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 strife. In a 1936 interview for The New York Times , Hilton states that he used "Tibetan material" from

1128-467: The kingdom lasted until the 20th century. After the 1630s, the Derge Kingdom became a major center of Tibetan culture, printing, industry, Tibetan Buddhism , and politics, and the seat of its kingdom was in the town of Degé . The kings of Derge belonged to the 1300-year old Gar Clan lineage, At its height, the population of the kingdom consisted of 12–15,000 families. The northern border of

1175-564: The kingdom was defined by Tso Ngon Lake ; on the east, the boundary terminated at those states that utilized the Horpa variation of the Rgyalrongic languages , Chantui and Litang ; the southern and western boundaries were defined by Batang , Sanai , Gonjo and Draya; and Lhato and Chamdo , respectively. During the Qing dynasty , a Derge king requested a Tusi title in 1728. The kingdom

1222-468: The land cultivated by Chinese immigrants. Zhao's methods in eastern Tibet uncannily prefigured the Communist policies nearly half a century later. They were aimed at the extermination of the Tibetan clergy, the assimilation of territory and repopulation of the Tibetan plateaus with poor peasants from Sichuan. Like the later Chinese conquerors, Zhao's men looted and destroyed Tibetan monasteries, melted down religious images and tore up sacred texts to use to line

1269-489: The mid-9th century, Tibet separated into independent kingdoms. Kham was not controlled by a single king and remained a patchwork of kingdoms, tribes, and chiefdoms whose bases of authority were constantly shifting. A dual system of secular and Buddhist polities continued. In 1270, the Sakya school's lama Tonstul, a student of Sakya Pandita , established a monastery in Kham while both Kagyu and Sakya monasteries were located in

1316-401: The northern plains, including Gonjo and Lingtsang, which accompanied the earlier Nyingma and Bon monasteries of Kham. In 1639, Güshri Khan , a supporter of the Dalai Lama, invaded with Mongolian troops and defeated the powerful King of Beri in Kham. In 1655, Ngawang Phuntsok, a student of the Dalai Lama, founded Gonsar Monastery, the first of the 13 Gelug monasteries in the Hor States , with

1363-458: The peoples of Kham and Lhasa. Most of Kham's residents speak Khams Tibetan while at least one-third of the residents are speakers of Qiangic languages , a family of twelve distinct but interrelated languages that are not closely related to Khams Tibetan. As a frontier region, Kham integrated and "Tibetanized" early Mongolian and Chinese populations. After Güshri Khan's invasion of Kham in 1639, Mongolian people and Amdo's tribal people resettled to

1410-626: The region soon after the invasion of Tibet by the British army under Francis Younghusband in 1904. The British invasion alarmed the Qing rulers in China, and they sent Fengquan (鳳全) to Kham to initiate land reforms and reduce the numbers of monks. An anti-foreigner and anti-Qing uprising in Batang led to Fengquan's death, while Chinese fields were burned. The Qing then undertook punitive campaigns in Kham under Manchu army commander Zhao Erfeng , also

1457-543: The region. The Khampas are known for their great height. Khampa males are on average 180 cm (5 ft 11 in). The Pugyal Dynasty (or Yarlung) of the Tibetan Empire sent troops east from Lhasa to the reaches of the Tibetan Plateau , where they interacted with local cultures and languages to establish eastern Tibet, or Do Kham ('Do', the convergence of rivers and valleys; 'Kham', frontier). Kham

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1504-524: The reign of Tenpa Tsering, who conquered territories to the north. In the early 1900s, Eric R. Coales prepared a report that included information about the "recent" history of the kingdom for the British. According to Coales' report, in 1895, the Viceroy of Sichuan sent forces into Chantui, led by General Chang Chi, who advanced further into Derge. The king and his family were imprisoned in Chengdu . By

1551-519: The soles of their boots and, as the Communists were also to do later, Zhao Erfeng worked out a comprehensive scheme for the redevelopment of Tibet that covered military training reclamation work, secular education, trade and administration. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Zhao was stripped of his post and executed by the revolutionary commander Yin Changheng . A year before the collapse of

1598-626: The support of the kingdom of Degé . By 1677, many Gelug monasteries had been built when the 5th Dalai Lama finalized Kham's Sino-Tibetan border location between China and a Tibet then reunified in the Khoshut Khanate , resulting in Kham being ascribed to Tibet's authority. The major independent polities included the Chakla , Degé , the Lingtsang , Nangchen and the Lhatok . Other important polities included Chamdo , Batang , Mili , and

1645-544: The time political intrigue in China had forced the troops to withdraw, the king had died, leaving behind two sons, Doje Senkel and Djembel Rinch'en. The former of these enjoyed the support of the Chinese, but the latter, who may have been illegitimate, had backers in Chantui. The two struggled over the throne until 1908, when Doje Senkel appealed for assistance to the Chinese General Chao Eh-Feng, who

1692-640: The tourist destinations of Zhongdian County, claim the title. In 2001, Zhongdian County in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture , northwestern Yunnan province, officially renamed to Shangri-la . It is known as "香格里拉" (Xiānggélǐlā) in Chinese, "སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ།" in Tibetan and "ज्ञानगंज" [gyanganj] in India. American explorers Ted Vaill and Peter Klika visited the Muli area of southern Sichuan Province in 1999, and claimed that

1739-472: The warlords. The Consoltary Commission forces were used to battle the Communist Red Army but were defeated when their religious leader was captured by Communist forces. The Republic of China government also used Khampa traders to operate secret transports between different places. Kesang Tsering was sent by the Chinese to Batang to take control of Xikang , where he formed a local government. He

1786-626: Was based on references to the southern Yunnan Province from articles published by National Geographic's first resident explorer Joseph Rock . On 2 December 2010, OPB televised one of Martin Yan 's Hidden China episodes, "Life in Shangri-La", in which Yan said that "Shangri-La" is the actual name of a real town in the hilly and mountainous region in southwestern Yunnan Province, frequented by both Han and Tibetan locals. Martin Yan visited arts and craft shops and local farmers as they harvested crops, and sampled their cuisine. However, this town

1833-680: Was initialed but not ratified. In 1917, the Tibetan army defeated China in battles at Chamdo , west of the Dri River, which were halted after Britain refused to sell Tibet additional armements. The official position of the British Government was it would not intervene between China and Tibet and would only recognize the de facto government of China within Tibet at this time. In his history of Tibet, Bell wrote that "the Tibetans were abandoned to Chinese aggression, an aggression for which

1880-515: Was known for its metal working and was an important center in the establishment of the Rimé movement in Tibetan Buddhism . The royal family of Derge were known as supporters of art, producing such artists as Situ Panchen , the kingdom's senior court chaplain, who is also known for his contributions to medicine and religion. Regent Queen Tsewang Lhamo (d. 1812) was known for her support of

1927-511: Was merged into Sichuan in 1955. The border between Sichuan and Tibet Autonomous Region has remained at the Yangtze River. 30°36′6.01″N 96°50′29.59″E  /  30.6016694°N 96.8415528°E  / 30.6016694; 96.8415528 Shangri-La Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains , described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by English author James Hilton . Hilton portrays Shangri-La as

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1974-609: Was not originally named Shangri-La, but was renamed so in 2001 to increase tourism. In the "Shangri-La" episode of the BBC documentary series In Search of Myths and Heroes , television presenter and historian Michael Wood suggested that the legendary Shangri-La might be the abandoned city of Tsaparang , and that its two great temples were once home to the kings of Guge in modern Tibet. The Travel Channel in 2016 aired two episodes of Expedition Unknown that followed host Josh Gates to Lo Manthang , Nepal and its surrounding areas, including

2021-652: Was officially established as Xikang Province of China. Kham has a rugged terrain characterized by mountain ridges and gorges running from northwest to southeast, and collectively known as the Hengduan Mountains . Numerous rivers, including the Mekong , Yangtze , Yalong River , and the Salween River flow through Kham. Under the modern administrative division of China, Kham includes a total of 50 contemporary counties , which have been incorporated into

2068-527: Was on military campaign in the area to secure the political primacy of China. Djembel Rinch'en was driven to take sanctuary with the Dalai Lama , Thubten Gyatso ; Doje Senkel yielded the kingdom to China in exchange for an allowance. The Chinese retained direct control of Derge until 1918. The palace of the Derge kings, located next to the Parkhang Monastery , was demolished after 1950 and

2115-827: Was published in the United Kingdom in 1928. Hilton visited the Hunza Valley , located in Gilgit−Baltistan , close to the China–Pakistan border , a few years before Lost Horizon was published. Being an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, enclosed on the western end of the Himalayas, it closely matches the description in the novel, and is believed to have inspired Hilton's physical description of Shangri-La. Today various places, such as parts of southern Kham in northwestern Yunnan province, including

2162-589: Was spread there for the purpose of propagating the Three People's Principle to the Khampa. In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang rulers of China by communist forces in the Chinese Civil War , the People's Liberation Army invaded western Kham. Western Kham was then set up as a separate Qamdo Territory, then merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. Meanwhile, Xikang , comprising eastern Kham,

2209-428: Was traditionally referred to as Chushi Gangdruk , i.e. 'The Four Rivers and Six Ranges' and 'The Four Great Valleys'. Responsible for introducing Buddhism to Tibet, King Songtsen Gampo (reign 629–649) built twelve 'border-taming' temples in Kham, and his 4th wife Wencheng Gongzhu is credited with commissioning Buddhist structures while traveling through Kham in 640–641, from her home in China to Central Tibet. During

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