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00:00Of all the world's great myths, the oldest and the most enduring is the tale of an earthly paradise.
00:20A place beyond the clouds, untouched by time and death, where the ancient wisdom still lives on.
00:30The land has many names. One of them is Shangri-La.
01:00The story of Shangri-La begins with a plane crash in the wilds of Tibet.
01:28The hero, Conway, is rescued by mysterious strangers who take him to a valley unmarked on any map.
01:44A place where time has stood still.
01:51Welcome to Shangri-La.
01:58Welcome to Shangri-La.
02:01Shangri-La.
02:04Shangri-La.
02:06Shangri-La.
02:10How?
02:12Shangri-La.
02:22Come by!
02:23In our congested and material age,
02:36we humans still dream of a world beyond the here and now,
02:41in another time zone than our own.
02:45The very name Shangri-La has come to mean a paradise on earth.
02:50But could Shangri-La have been a real place?
02:53Where did the story come from?
02:57The story of Shangri-La was actually invented in the 1930s
03:01by James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon.
03:05The tale of a hidden valley where the wisdom of humanity
03:07was preserved to save us from self-destruction
03:10struck a really deep chord in the pessimistic years
03:13between the two world wars.
03:15But like all the best stories,
03:17Shangri-La wasn't just plucked out of the sky.
03:20Its roots lie in an ancient legend
03:22and in a tantalising cluster of rumours
03:25which surfaced in the 16th century.
03:35The rumours surfaced here in India.
03:38The path which leads to Shangri-La
03:40begins in the north Indian city of Agra,
03:43in the 16th century,
03:45the capital of the Mughal Empire.
03:55In those days, India was the centre of the world.
04:00The Emperor Akbar the Great,
04:02as powerful as any king on earth.
04:09A Muslim who ruled a Hindu empire,
04:12Akbar was fascinated by the ancient myths of Hindu India.
04:19He sent an expedition to find the source
04:22of the sacred river Ganges,
04:24which legend said fell from heaven.
04:26When the expedition returned to Agra,
04:31Akbar and his court heard fantastic tales
04:34of an unknown land beyond the Himalayas.
04:40His Christian guests were astonished
04:43to hear about a kingdom
04:45where the people worshipped a saviour
04:47and had monks and monasteries just like them.
04:50It was nothing less than a lost world.
04:53And there was more.
04:59A Muslim merchant now stood up here
05:01in the Royal Audience Hall
05:02and said he knew more about this unknown kingdom
05:05beyond the Himalayas.
05:06It had cities and thousands of people
05:09and its religious rituals
05:10were uncannily similar to those of the Christians.
05:14And it had a name.
05:16Shambhala.
05:21And on Shambhala,
05:23there hangs quite a tale.
05:29For centuries,
05:30the story had been told
05:31of a magic land north of the Himalayas,
05:34a land of peace and plenty,
05:37a paradise on earth.
05:39The tale is still told today.
05:41There is a legend that far away,
05:45beyond the Himalayas,
05:47lies a secret valley
05:49hidden by a ring of snow-covered peaks.
05:53At its centre
05:53is a beautiful crystal mountain.
05:57This is the gateway
05:58to the kingdom of Shambhala.
06:00Here, the people live in peace and harmony.
06:04There is no hunger or sickness.
06:06They live long and happy lives.
06:09Now, the task for the rulers of Shambhala
06:13is to guard the treasures of human knowledge,
06:17ready for the time which will come,
06:19when the world will be ruined by war,
06:22violence and greed.
06:24Of course,
06:26some say Shambhala
06:28is purely an imaginary land.
06:32But others say
06:33it is a real place
06:35and it can still be found
06:37if only the seeker knows where
06:40and how to look.
06:42And so I set off
06:52on a journey which might not end
06:54to a place which might not exist.
07:00My plan was to follow the route
07:03of the first explorers of Tibet
07:05who tried to find the land of Shambhala.
07:07Because the legend of Shambhala,
07:13I think,
07:14holds the key
07:15to the tale of Shangri-La.
07:23I wasn't the first, of course.
07:25Ever since the 16th century,
07:27a stream of Westerners
07:29driven by the legend
07:30have tried to find the magic kingdom,
07:33each believing in his own Shangri-La.
07:37and his own Shangri-La.
07:47Those days,
07:48there were three ways to go.
07:50A great circle
07:51east through Sikkim
07:52or west through the closed land of Ladakh
07:56or straight over
07:58the greatest wall of peaks on Earth.
08:00And this was the route
08:01used by the first seeker,
08:03a young Portuguese Jesuit,
08:05Antonio Andrade.
08:06The story of Andrade's adventure
08:11would have been completely forgotten
08:13but for the survival
08:14of the account he wrote at the time.
08:17This is it,
08:18or Descobrimento de Tibet,
08:20the discovery of Tibet.
08:22It describes one of the most fascinating journeys in history.
08:25Seeking what he thought
08:32might be a lost Christian kingdom,
08:35Andrade and his friend Marques
08:36set off disguised as Hindu pilgrims.
08:39Their first stop
08:56was Hardwar
08:56on the river Ganges.
08:58Hardwar is particularly sacred to Indian people
09:09because this is the point
09:12where the river Ganges
09:13rushes down
09:14between two great rocky hills
09:17from the Himalayan foothills
09:18meets the plains of India.
09:20It's one of the stages
09:23on its journey
09:24from heaven down to the sea
09:25as the Indians say.
09:33And I suppose
09:34that's what paradises are about.
09:37It's a perennial urge
09:38in human nature
09:39to seek them.
09:42To step out of our time zone
09:45into another.
09:51And sacred places
09:53like this
09:54are where the contact
09:55is sharpest.
09:58Where for a moment
10:00you can actually
10:01cross over
10:02into another world.
10:15From Hardwar,
10:35the path
10:36to the mysterious
10:3716th century land
10:39of Shambhala
10:39led into the Himalayan foothills.
10:41Like Akbar's expedition
10:46and the Jesuit Andrade
10:47I followed
10:48the sacred river Ganges
10:50up
10:51and up.
10:56Andrade and his friend
10:57were the first outsiders
10:58ever to see this landscape.
11:02A world where gods
11:04manifested themselves
11:05in snow peaks,
11:07ice caves
11:07and the lips of glaciers.
11:11They were heading
11:14for Badrinath
11:15the shrine
11:16of the great god Vishnu
11:17the preserver
11:18of the universe.
11:23And at Badrinath
11:24we entered
11:25the military zone
11:26bordering China.
11:33Do we need
11:34our piece of paper
11:34back?
11:41Ahead now
11:47Andrade wrote
11:48I saw the highest
11:49and most terrible
11:50mountains that could
11:51possibly be imagined
11:52on this earth.
11:57His guides were
11:58leading him to the
11:5920,000 foot
12:00Mana Pass
12:01into Tibet.
12:02So here we are.
12:13This is Mana,
12:14the last village
12:16in India.
12:18This is where
12:19a British expedition
12:20to find the source
12:21of the Ganges
12:21turned back
12:22in 1808.
12:24It was a site
12:25of majestic splendor,
12:27one of them wrote,
12:28but it filled
12:29our minds
12:30with dread.
12:30The locals
12:35told us
12:36that beyond
12:37these peaks
12:37lay an ancient city
12:38built by the gods,
12:40but our guides
12:41refused to go on,
12:42saying we could
12:43make the attempt
12:44ourselves
12:44if we wished
12:46to be turned
12:46into stone.
12:47a young Indian prince,
12:57brave and strong,
12:59set off in search
13:00of Shambhala.
13:02After crossing
13:03many mountains
13:04and facing
13:05snow leopards
13:06and winged lions
13:08with turquoise manes,
13:10he came to the cave
13:11of an old hermit
13:13who asked him,
13:14where on earth
13:16are you going
13:17across these
13:17wastes of snow
13:19and ice?
13:20To find Shambhala,
13:22the youth replied.
13:24Aha,
13:25said the old man,
13:27then I can help you.
13:30When you reach
13:32Copper Mountain,
13:32your path
13:34will be blocked
13:34by an impassable river.
13:37There you will meet
13:38a terrifying demon
13:39called
13:40Flushing Lightning.
13:42She will ask,
13:43why have you come
13:45and what
13:46do you desire?
13:49If you answer
13:50with a true heart,
13:52she will freeze
13:53the river
13:53and allow you
13:54to cross
13:55and continue
13:56your journey.
13:57But if you are
13:59unworthy,
14:00you will go
14:01no further.
14:04It was no
14:11supernatural power
14:12that blocked our way.
14:14Since the Chinese
14:15invasion of Tibet
14:16in the 1950s,
14:17the Mana Pass,
14:18which Andrade took,
14:20has been closed
14:21and we were
14:22forbidden to cross.
14:26And so,
14:27to continue
14:28our journey,
14:29we were forced
14:30to make a great
14:30detour
14:31through Nepal.
14:34nearly 300 miles
14:58west of Kathmandu
14:59lies the village
15:00of Simikot.
15:01It's a tiny
15:04government outpost
15:05in a land
15:06in the grip
15:07of civil war.
15:08In the mountains
15:09all around us
15:10were Maoist
15:11guerrillas.
15:14Our plan now
15:15was to slip
15:16into Tibet
15:16through the back
15:17door
15:18as tourists.
15:19and here
15:27in Simikot
15:28we found
15:29our means
15:29of transport
15:30and we
15:32found our
15:33guide.
15:44Descended from
15:45a long line
15:45of Tibetan
15:46lamas,
15:46the grandson
15:47of a great
15:47magician,
15:48Se Wang
15:49is a man
15:50adept
15:50at crossing
15:51between worlds.
16:07The old trackways
16:09through western Nepal
16:10into Tibet
16:10are all blocked
16:12by the Maoist
16:12guerrillas.
16:14So we're
16:14hitching a lift
16:15in this helicopter
16:16with a medical
16:16foundation
16:17who are taking
16:18medicines and
16:20supplies over the
16:21mountains into
16:21the Limhi Valley
16:22and we're going
16:23to walk into
16:24Tibet from there.
16:29It sounds easy
16:30when you put it
16:31like that,
16:31doesn't it?
16:32On paper,
16:33our detour
16:34through Nepal
16:35looked long,
16:35hard and risky
16:37and we're going to
16:38take a look at it.
16:39But better than we
16:39could have ever
16:40planned,
16:40it proved the right
16:42path to take.
16:50Se Wang was right
16:51in his first guess.
16:52There were no guerrillas
16:53down there in the Limhi Valley.
16:55Our Russian pilots
17:03though weren't
17:04taking any chances
17:05and they left
17:06their engine running
17:06as they threw
17:07our bags out.
17:12Here we go.
17:25How about that?
17:33So this is
17:33Limhi Valley.
17:35Last valley
17:36before Tibet.
17:55We're inside Nepal
17:58here, but the people
18:00belong to the
18:01ancient culture
18:01of Western Tibet.
18:04An unbroken link
18:06with the time
18:06a thousand years ago
18:07when the legend
18:09of the Himalayan
18:09paradise first
18:11appears.
18:25Here in Limhi
18:26I felt as if
18:27I'd dropped
18:28through a trapdoor
18:29into another time,
18:31into a place
18:32where the world
18:33of Tibetan myth
18:34was still alive.
18:51That night
18:52in the monastery
18:53they summoned
18:54the spirits
18:55with drums
18:56and trumpets.
19:01And death
19:02himself appeared.
19:04Not an abstraction
19:05but a black-faced
19:07demon
19:07who showed me
19:08my destiny
19:09on a piece
19:10of human skull.
19:25The great hero
19:31and magician
19:32Padma the Wise
19:33chose 21 secret valleys
19:36in the Himalayas
19:37and in them
19:39he hid
19:39the most precious treasures
19:41known to man.
19:43He made these valleys
19:44invisible,
19:46so the story goes,
19:48intending that they
19:49should only reappear
19:50in times of trouble.
19:54Now,
19:55some say this is just
19:57a fairy story,
19:59but others say
20:00that the treasures
20:01Padma hid
20:02were wisdom
20:03and knowledge.
20:05And when the time
20:06comes,
20:07the enlightened
20:07will be guided
20:08to these valleys
20:09where they will
20:11rediscover
20:11the sacred objects
20:13and texts
20:14that will be needed
20:15to rebuild
20:16the world.
20:26Amazing houses,
20:27aren't they?
20:29The next day,
20:30as custom demands,
20:32we paid a visit
20:33to the keeper
20:33of the secret valley,
20:36the lama
20:36of the monastery
20:37of Jiang.
20:43Wow,
20:43amazing place.
20:55So this came
20:57after the cultural revolution,
20:59after the Chinese invasion.
21:00How old is this?
21:01This is an ancient piece,
21:02this is a Kashmir fish,
21:04very ancient piece.
21:04From 1,000 years maybe?
21:06More than that.
21:07More than that?
21:07Yes.
21:08This is absolutely amazing.
21:09This is from Toling Monastery,
21:10which is the greatest
21:11monastery of all
21:12in Western Tibet,
21:12wasn't it?
21:13Yes, yes, yes.
21:14And they brought it
21:15over the mountains
21:16after the destruction
21:17during the cultural revolution
21:19in the Chinese invasion.
21:21It's very heavy.
21:23Wow,
21:23it's absolutely amazing.
21:26Just look at that.
21:27So this has been
21:28deliberately smashed?
21:30Yeah.
21:30Deliberately broken.
21:31Yeah.
21:31Can the Lama tell us
21:33what the image is?
21:33What is it?
21:35What is it?
21:36Namgyalma.
21:37Namgyalma?
21:38Namgyalma.
21:38Oh,
21:39it's a Bodhisatta.
21:41It's a Bodhisatta.
21:42Okay.
21:42Yes.
21:42It seemed that
21:45every nook and cranny
21:47was crammed
21:47with precious books
21:48and works of art,
21:50saved from
21:50the Chinese destruction
21:51of old Tibet.
21:53900 years old.
21:55900 years old.
21:59Yeah.
21:59You know,
22:00there are legends
22:03and then you come
22:04to a place like this
22:05and here's the reality
22:06of the legend,
22:07isn't it?
22:08It's amazing.
22:09This is like a
22:11cultural rescue
22:12operation.
22:13Exactly.
22:13It's amazing.
22:14The Tibetan culture
22:15is finished in that side.
22:16It is living here.
22:17It's just amazing,
22:21isn't it?
22:22Yes.
22:26It's me,
22:26it's me.
22:27Yes.
22:31The lama then took me
22:33to see more secrets
22:34of the monastery.
22:38So we're going to go
22:39into the monastic
22:41bit of these buildings.
22:42This is the communal area
22:43where the dramas are done
22:45but this is the prayer hall
22:47of the monastery.
22:50For me,
22:50it was all uncannily
22:51like a scene
22:52in Hilton's tale
22:53of Shangri-La
22:54when the lama
22:59shows Conway
23:00the library
23:01where the wisdom
23:02of the world
23:02is preserved.
23:04So these are
23:04the old sutras.
23:06And then the lama
23:07reveals his vision
23:08to save the treasures
23:10of humanity
23:11for future generations.
23:13This, he says,
23:14is why Shangri-La
23:15is here.
23:18Wow.
23:20Gosh, absolutely.
23:22He has heard
23:32about Shangri-La,
23:33how, you know,
23:34that exists in the remodeling area,
23:35the wildlife,
23:36people living,
23:37you know,
23:37this is discussed there.
23:39Yeah.
23:39But he had heard
23:40about this.
23:41So does he think
23:42Shangri-La is a real place
23:44or is it a place
23:45of the spirit,
23:46of the mind?
23:47Shangri-La,
23:47it really exists.
23:48It really exists.
23:49It really exists.
23:50It really exists.
23:54It really exists.
24:01It really exists.
24:02It is in the religion
24:03in our text
24:03describes about it.
24:05Fantastic.
24:05It really exists.
24:28From Jiang, we joined a caravan of yak herders heading towards Tibet,
24:33hoping that we'd get through before the snows came.
24:45And I found myself musing on how the visions of myth find their echoes in history,
24:52how ancient stories can still shadow our modern hopes and dreams.
25:03Later that day, we were met by an honor guard sent by the next village in the valley.
25:11Hello!
25:25Thank you. Very nice to meet you. Hello!
25:27My ex-husbandysts
25:29My ex-husbandysts
25:30I'm doing it!
25:32Nice to meet you. Hello!
25:33Hello!
25:38Hello!
25:42Hello!
25:45Hello!
25:48Hello!
25:49Come on, you're right.
26:07Well, just look at that.
26:09It's nice, stupendous.
26:12Hidden valley.
26:13Look at it.
26:19And so we arrived at the monastery of Halji.
26:43Halji was founded from Tholing, the mother monastery of Western Tibet, in the 10th century, the
26:51very time when the legend first appeared.
26:55Welcome to you.
27:02So if there was a real Shangri-La, this place is its living descendant.
27:13You can't believe that things like this still survive in the 21st century, can you?
27:30It's absolutely unbelievable.
27:32It can only have survived because of its total isolation, can't it?
27:35In the past, different worlds, different conceptions of time and space could live
28:05side-by-side on our Earth.
28:08But not anymore.
28:10We're modern people now.
28:12We've had our revolutions and our reformations.
28:15And now time races in one line, headlong forward.
28:20Past recedes from us ever faster.
28:24And we think we've freed ourselves from the great circle of time.
28:28We're one world now, even here.
28:36We will take the message back, yeah?
28:54Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?
28:59They absolutely want to have electricity and the micro-hydro and telephone.
29:04And telephone.
29:05Our journey led us higher now, into a cold, bleak zone, where even in the sun, we were chilled
29:25to the bone.
29:25These are valleys where hermits come to commune with the spirits and to seek their own kind
29:43of immortality.
29:44And we're all in the sun.
30:14What an incredible place, absolutely amazing place.
30:22We're more than 4,000 meters here, I think, and just look at the, you know, you're into
30:27this border zone of the sacred geography of the subcontinent of India, really.
30:32There's monks in these caves out there.
30:35This is where the gurus come out to the wildest caves in the Himalayas.
30:40And there's, if you look over there, these great black teeth.
30:466,500 meters, more than 21,000 feet, those.
30:49And behind them, Gulamandata, 25,000 feet.
30:53And Kailash just beyond there, that's Tibet there.
30:57We were right in the very edge of the zone where human beings have ever lived.
31:08What's this?
31:09You want it?
31:10Will it be good?
31:11Sometime you have a stomach.
31:13OK.
31:14But I think delicious water.
31:15The water will be good here.
31:16The water is very pure here.
31:17Your good health.
31:18Manasarbar water.
31:19Holy water.
31:20Your good health.
31:21I think it's here.
31:23Chang is homemade barley beer.
31:25It's served cold out of old plastic jerry cans.
31:29It's not very appetizing on a chill grey afternoon.
31:33And it's not a very good idea at this altitude.
31:37Till is the village at the end of the world, desperately poor and isolated.
31:51But its people still see hospitality as a sacred duty and a real pleasure.
31:57Oh, fantastic.
32:20Thank you very much.
32:27We got here just in time.
32:40In a few days the snow will fall and till will be cut off from the rest of the world for
32:45the next five months.
32:50That evening we paid our respects to the legendary abbot of Till.
33:05He's famous for having practiced the most incredible austerities up in the caves.
33:10You know, meditation for years on end.
33:11So that's why he's so revered.
33:13He's like a saint.
33:15Thank you very much.
33:16Mm.
33:17Yeah, so thank you.
33:18rajangas,
33:27nh Country tour.
33:28Duty done.
33:29It was drinks all round,
33:30and time for party games.
33:33And until that means tug-of-war.
33:39The girls challenged the boys, guests included of course, all under the eye of the great
33:48lama himself.
34:18By now, with the altitude and all that chang, my mind was swimming, but the abbot's serene
34:28consciousness never wavered.
34:34Next morning, while the men slept off some ferocious hangovers, the women saddled up our horses
34:57and sent us on our way.
34:59Just follow the path all the way to China, they said.
35:13You can't miss it.
35:22All day, the path went up and down and up and down.
35:26But soon, every step was an effort.
35:33But it must have been much worse for the first seeker, the Jesuit Andrade, sick and snow-blind,
35:40in agonies of frostbite.
35:43It took us 20 days to get into Tibet, he says, because ranges of terrible mountains blocked
35:51the way.
35:51Every day around four o'clock, the snow came in, he says, and we lost all feeling in our
35:58hands and feet and faces.
36:00There was no wood for firewood.
36:01And worst of all, Andrade writes, was the biting wind.
36:31The only food they got in the mountains, he says, was roast, barley, meal, which they mixed
36:50with water, and that was all the food they had, just like the Tibetan nomads.
36:55We're going to be a bit like that ourselves tonight, I think, because our horses have not
37:00caught up with us, and it's already quite late.
37:03It's all our sleeping bags and our food, and pretty much everything is with them, so we're
37:08going to have a rather cold and hungry night.
37:22It's sort of chewy and tasteless, but we're stuck in the mountains on the edge of Tibet.
37:28Sub-zero and the snow's starting.
37:30It's okay.
37:33One day, greed and ignorance will lay waste to the earth itself, and an evil king will triumph
37:46and spread his power over all humankind.
37:49But just when it seems there is nothing left to conquer, then the mists will lift to reveal
37:56the icy mountains of Shambhala.
38:00Then the king of Shambhala will ride out and overthrow the forces of evil, and wisdom will
38:07at last be enthroned on earth.
38:10But after a bitter night came an ethereal dawn.
38:14And what a feeling it was to have to die theimientos of the ocean.
38:33So, they're still here in the south.
38:35And what a feeling it was to be on top of the world.
39:05At last, we caught sight of what must be one of the loneliest border posts in the world, the crossing into Western Tibet.
39:35Our plan now was to cross the high plateau of Tibet, behind the Himalayas, to rejoin the route taken by Andrade on his journey from India.
39:45Somehow it makes it feel even better when you've chemically killed yourself.
40:00And now we entered the most mythic landscape on earth.
40:05A world teeming with sacred peaks, lakes and rivers.
40:16At its centre, the eerie white pyramid of the holy mountain, Kailash.
40:26A mirror of the crystal peak in the ancient legends and the tale of Shangri-La.
40:35But for us, paradise was here and now. A real bed for the night.
40:52Oh really?
40:55Yeah.
40:58This is Lake Manasarofa.
41:20In Indian myth, along with Kailash, the lake is the centre of the world.
41:32According to Tibetan legend, the lake is a gateway of the spirits.
41:38The sound of the ice squeaking and breaking is the noise of demons rising from the underworld.
41:50As night fell, the myth became real for me.
42:17It may be freezing and barren here, not paradise as you might imagine it, but it is heaven on earth.
42:24When the god Shiva married his great love, Bhardvati, daughter of the snows, he said to her,
42:31Where shall we fly to enjoy our wedding night?
42:38I can take you wherever you desire, anywhere in the universe.
42:40And Bhardvati replied, Thank you for your generosity, my lord.
42:47Your power and wisdom are known to everyone.
42:54But if you come with me, I can take you to paradise.
42:56And that night she took him to the crystal mountain by the sacred lake,
43:02where wild animals are tame in the presence of holy saints and sages.
43:09She took him to Mount Kailash saying, this is the only true paradise on earth.
43:28And there they first made love.
43:35In the western world, we've completely lost the idea of a sacred landscape.
43:54But across Asia, it's been one of the most important religious ideas for thousands of years.
43:59And we're now about to reach the holiest place of all.
44:07Everest may be higher, but in the mythic stakes, Kailash reigns supreme.
44:17You don't climb it, that would be sacrilege.
44:20You set off from the great flagpole and you walk 30 miles round its base, prostrating yourself as you go.
44:30This is set up on the full moon night of each May, June, to begin the pilgrimage season
44:35when thousands of people do the circuit of the mountain
44:38in the belief that this is the axis of the universe, the center of the world.
44:42And it's not such a crazy idea, is it?
44:45Because in this tiny area of western Tibet, four of the great rivers of Asia rise.
44:50The Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej, and the Karnali, which feeds the Ganges,
44:56the holiest river of India.
44:59If anywhere is a sacred place on this earth, then this surely is.
45:15The pilgrim's reward is a bath in the hot springs of Teathapurid.
45:20This is what I call pilgrimage.
45:32Bloody hell.
45:35After 250 miles on dirt tracks, we finally came out behind the Himalayas, at the point where Andrade crossed into Tibet nearly 400 years ago.
45:54That's India over there, in the middle, the great pyramid of Nandadevi, and just to the right, the cluster of Indian sacred peaks.
46:06Joshimath, Badrinath, Gangotri, and Amarna Pass, just there.
46:17Andrade was met by mysterious ambassadors, who gave him horses and led him down into a vast labyrinth of canyons.
46:25And for us now, there was an almost electric feeling of anticipation.
46:36Only a handful of outsiders have seen this since Andrade arrived here in 1624.
46:44A city literally built out of a mountain.
46:47The people came out into the streets, he says, and the women crowded the balconies to see us, strange creatures, like people from another world.
47:06They were the first Europeans to cross the Himalayas, and the first to make contact with the ancient civilization of Tibet.
47:14So these are the two main monasteries ahead, then, are there the white and the red?
47:24The red temple and the red temple.
47:26Yeah, a temple, sorry.
47:27But of course, this wasn't the lost Christian civilization the Europeans had expected to find.
47:33What they'd discovered was Saperang, the capital of the Buddhist kingdom of Guge,
47:39founded in the 9th century, just before the legend of Shambhala first appears.
47:50You know, as you climb and you look at this hidden valley, hidden from the rest of the world until the 17th century,
47:57you really begin to understand how a legend could have arisen, don't you like that?
48:10From the beginning, the city had been intended by its builders to be a hidden place.
48:16A thousand years ago, when Tibet was torn apart by civil war, the city was created by a branch of the Tibetan royal family,
48:27as a refuge, set apart from the outside world, where its Buddhist rulers could follow the wheel of law,
48:35unharmed by the revolutions of history.
48:38So this is the king of Guge's private chambers, and just come and have a look at the view that the king enjoyed.
49:06How about that?
49:17In 1624, this was a network of sparkling canals between green fields and fruit orchards.
49:24A garden in the desert. Paradise.
49:27Its rulers so open to the newcomers that they allowed them to build a church here and preach Christianity.
49:38But as so often in history, the arrival of the Europeans was the beginning of the end.
49:43The neighbouring rulers of Ladakh were angry that the Christians had been let in, and they made war on the king of Saparan.
49:53In 1685, the city was finally sieged and destroyed.
49:59Its royal family, men, women and children, were beheaded.
50:10Their bodies were dumped in this cave.
50:15There's a chamber here, and there's an inner chamber. Bones, cloth.
50:20Preserved in the dry air, they're still here, and still smell.
50:31These are the remains of the bodies of the royal family.
50:35King and queen, and the children, ministers and generals of the last king of the Guge.
50:41But that's not the end of the story.
50:52Saparang's temples, among the most beautiful in all of Asia, weren't destroyed.
50:58A handful of local families and monks continued to tend them,
51:03and they lasted almost to our own time.
51:06So all these figures survived until the 1960s then, did they?
51:13Destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
51:15That's part of the figure?
51:17Well, it's heartbreaking, isn't it?
51:19Er...
51:21You're not allowed inside, I'm afraid, Sean.
51:25Sorry.
51:27Okay?
51:29Yeah.
51:31In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, with its rage against religion,
51:34these wonderful things were smashed.
51:37Amazing.
51:39The Chinese regret it now.
51:41But what remains is just a fleeting glimpse of a lost world.
51:44And Vajrapani.
51:46Yeah.
51:48Yeah.
51:50And date of temple?
51:52And the meaning of the myth?
51:54The Tibetans say that each of us can live in Shangri-La
51:56if we can only conquer the restless need that makes us dream of paradise
52:02in worlds other than our own.
52:06James Hilton imagined Shangri-La here in Tibet.
52:09But if you ask me, paradise can be found anywhere on this Earth.
52:15But only on this Earth.
52:18And it's in our hands whether we make it or destroy it.
52:21When he left Shangri-La, Conway felt the surge of darkness around him,
52:38as if the world outside were already brewing for the storm.
52:42We have a dream, the Lama had told him.
52:46Even the most beautiful things are transient and perishable.
52:50War, lust and brutality will crush them till nothing is left.
52:55That is why Shangri-La is here.
52:58To preserve the wisdom men will need when their violent passions are spent.
53:03To preserve the wisdom men will need when their sins are spent.
53:33Our journey was over.
53:42A few days later, we crossed from Tibet into Nepal and were taken back to our world.
54:03A few days later, we went to Tibet into Nepal and were taken back to our world, and we went
54:19to Tibet into Nepal and were taken back to our world, and we were taken back to our world
54:25and we were taken back to our world.
54:29For more about ancient myths and their modern meaning, continue the journey at pbs.org.
54:37In Search of Myths and Heroes is available on videocassette and DVD.
54:41The companion book to the program is also available.
54:44To order, call PBS Home Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
54:59For more information, visit www.fema.org.