Theos-Talk Archives (January 1999 Message tl00033)

Jan 9th 1999

Dear Friends:

				Is a "Shangri-La now discovered ?

We owe this report to our friend Martin Leiderman.  It comes
originally from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and is reported in the Jan
8th issue of CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

While this report needs verification and details, I thought you
might be interested in knowing of it.  Apparently we can access
the information directly from www.chicagotribune.com.  Also
perhaps direct from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
 www.nationalgeographic.com

The Tsangpo is the river that becomes the Brahmaputra and flows
East through the Himalayas and then bending South cuts through
Assam in Eastern India and Bangaladesh;  and then joins the
Ganges to empty through a common delta into the Bay of Bengal.

It reminded me of a portion of A HINDU CHELA'S DIARY written by
Damodar K. Mavlankar to Judge, and which was then printed by him
in the 1st Vol. of the PATH in 1886.

THEOSOPHY MAGAZINE reprinted in its 3RD Vol. p. 357-8 are
relevant.  It was also published in THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT,
Bombay,  Vol. 10, p. 100.  It is well worth re-reading.

If more is heard of this, please let me know.

Best wishes

Dallas

-----Original Message-----
> From:	owner-theos-talk@pippin.imagiware.com
> [mailto:owner-theos-talk@pippin.imagiware.com] On Behalf Of
> Martin Leiderman
> Sent:	Friday, January 08, 1999 11:07 PM
> To:	theos-talk@theosophy.com
> 
> Subject:	Theos-World Shangri-la found

Chicago Tribune reported yesterday:
===========================================
TIBET DISCOVERY A
REAL-LIFE SHANGRI-LA
By Michael Kilian
Washington Bureau
January 8, 1999

WASHINGTON-
Explorers have finally found
Shangri-La.
It may not be quite
the storied, verdant, utopian
Himalayan paradise of
James Hilton's 1933
novel "Lost Horizon"
and subsequent movies of
the same name.
But it is verdant, it
is a kind of paradise, and it is
hidden deep within
Tibet's Himalayan Mountains
in a monstrously steep gorge within a gorge.
There is no record of
any human visiting or even
seeing the area before.
Tucked beneath a
mountain spur at a sharp
bend of the Tsangpo
River, where the cliffsides
are only 75 yards
apart and cast perpetual
shadows, the place
failed to show up even on
satellite surveillance photographs of the area.
"If there is a
Shangri-La, this is it," said Rebecca
Martin, director of
the National Geographic
Society's Expeditions
Board, which sponsored
the trek. "This is a
pretty startling
discovery-especially
in a time when many
people are saying,
'What's left to discover?' "
Tentatively named the
Hidden Falls of the
Tsangpo by the
explorers and located in a
forbidding region
called Pemako that Tibetans
consider highly
sacred, the elusive site was
reached by American
explorers Ian Baker, Ken
Storm Jr. and Brian
Harvey late last year, though
the society did not
make its confirmation of their
success official until Thursday.
In addition to a
spectacular 100-foot-high
waterfall-long
rumored but until now
undocumented-they
found a subtropical
garden, between
23,000-foot and 26,000-foot
mountains, at the
bottom of a 4,000-foot-high
cliff.
According to Martin,
it's the world's deepest
mountain gorge.
"It's a place teeming
with life," said Storm in a
telephone interview
from his office in the
Minneapolis suburb of
Burnsville. "It's a terribly
wild river, with many
small waterfalls, heavy
rapids and a
tremendous current surging
through. Yet there are
all kinds of
flora-subtropical
pine, rhododendrons, craggy
fir and hemlock and
spruce on the hillsides-it's
lush. Just a
tremendous wild garden
landscape."
The animals there
include a rare, horned
creature called the
takin, sacred to Tibetan
Buddhists.

For the whole article go to:
www.chicagotribune.com
select: search and type: shangri la

Martin Leiderman