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Xanadu

Xanadu is a place in our minds, lost in the fog of time and myth, like Shangri-La, these places of oriental exoticism, live as legend, places of magic and imaginings.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In fact Xanadu exists to this day as crumbled walls, in what we now call Inner Mongolia and was the capital every summer of Kublai Khan, the great Mongol Emperor and grandson of the equally famous Genghis Khan. In the 13th century the also legendary Marco Polo visited Xanadu and reported on the lavish splendour and exotic curios he found there. The Mongols were shamanistic in their religious rites and worshipped what were thought of as very strange gods. The great Khan took a shine to Marco, who was entertaining and good at recounting fireside tales with a flourish. The Khan refused to let Marco go home, he liked his new friend too well. Eventually, after serving the Khan by accompanying and safeguarding his daughter on a long trek to her new bridegroom, Marco was allowed to leave Xanadu and eventually to return to his home, Venice, where he drew great crowds eager to see the man who had seen Xanadu itself. To the medieval Christian eyes, Marco had seen into the mystic heart of the sumptuous east, into forbidden lands of magic and wonder.

Shangri-La, an eastern paradise of harmony and peace earth, has been the subject of novels and even Hollywood musicals. But did you know this magical realm is reputed to have really existed? A place such as this had been evoked for thousands of years in literature, going back to Sumerian tales and onto the Celtic ' islands of the blest.' In fact the novel Lost Horizon written by James Hilton in 1933, was based upon a much older myth that had its basis in reality.

In the 16th century, there was a western missionary who had served at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar. Akbar was an enlightened ruler for any age, who believed that the way to bring harmony to his lands and to all mankind, was to bring scholars representing all faiths and nations together to find common ground and ideas. Akbar said:

'It now becomes clear ... that it cannot be right to assert the truth of one faith above any other ... In this way we may perhaps again open the door whose key has been lost.'

So around himself Akbar gathered an assemblage of Christians, Yogis, Hindus and Sadhus and any wise and learned men who would visit his court. For the first time the west heard of this realm beyond the Himalayan mountains and the secret of Tibet became known to the outside world. A Jesuit missionary wrote down the wondrous tales he heard at Akbar's court and beside them drew a map of the region. But he was old, too old to go to the one place he left blank on his map with the note, 'here Christians live.' Another missionary was younger and set out upon the dangerous journey through high mountain passes to find this fabled place and he did find a stunning kingdom, rich in wealth as well as beauty. He later wrote an account of his journey, which was lost for four centuries, turning up in Calcutta in the 19th century and this became the basis of the novel Lost Horizon and our memories of that land of beauty, wisdom and enchantment, Shangri-La.