Though Hilton's Shangri-la has come to be associated with Tibet, in the book itself (unlike a later movie adaptation), apart from its probable geographical location, there is little that is Tibetan about the place. According to Conway, the atmosphere is Chinese, rather than specifically Tibetan (Hilton 1967, 52). Tibetans are the inhabitants of the lower valley who sing in "lilting barbaric tunes" (46), work in the fields, provide entertainment, and live a subaltern life. The inhabitants of the valley are a blend of Chinese and Tibetan and are cleaner and handsomer than the average of either race (Hilton 1933, 129). The high lama is from Luxembourg and most inhabitants of the lamasery are Europeans. In order to keep the lamasery populated, outsiders have been brought in. Father Perrault, the High Lama, explains that they once had a Japanese who was not a fine acquisition; "Tibetans are much less sensitive than outside races and die sooner, even though they are charming"; Chinese are slightly better; the "best subjects, undoubtedly, are the Nordic and Latin races of Europe" (1967, 110).
Hilton's Shangri-la has central heating and combines the mechanics of Western hygiene with much else that is "Eastern" and "traditional." For instance, after his arrival Conway enjoys a bath in a porcelain tub from Ohio, while a native attends to him in a Chinese fashion (1967, 51). Shangri-la is always tranquil yet always a hive of "unpursuing occupations"; the lamas lived "as if indeed they had time on their hands, but time that was scarcely a featherweight" (1967, 139). Inhabitants of the lamasery indulge in various intellectual pursuits-writing, doing pure mathematics, coordinating Gibbon and Spengler into a vast thesis on the history of European civilization, formulating new theories on Wuthering Heights, and so on. This is in line with the principal rationale for the existence of Shangri-la: to act as a sanctuary, to be a "war refuge" for preserving the best of modern civilizations (1933, 191-92).
Thus, Lost Horizon creates a utopia placed somewhere in Tibet. The utopia is an archive that seeks to preserve the best of the world from the world itself. As the High Lama says to Conway in the film version: "Once the world has spent itself, we shall be here with their books, their music, their way of life" (1937). Shangri-la for Hilton is a secret "archive state" hidden somewhere in the mountains of Central Asia. The High Lama here has a strategic conception of a utopian archive (with the best of Western and Eastern worlds), a fortress as well as a museum, a survivalist archive (Richards 1992, 124-25).
"The archive is also a place of dreams" (Steedman 1998, 67). It reflects not only the achieved but also the achievable and dreams of achieving the nonachievable. Thus, Shangri-la is a repository- of mental peace, spiritual wisdom, "high" culture, and physical wealth. It is a storehouse of desires-Western desires that leave little room for the cultural and historical specificity of Tibet. Western travelers' search for the "real Tibet" often takes them beyond actual Tibetans:
The real Tibet I was searching for was not out in the open. It was not in the magnificent temples and palaces, in the colorful bazaars, in the happy and carefree life of its farmers or in the entrancing charm of Lhasa's social life. Real Tibet transcends politics and economics; it is invisible, beyond sense-perception, beyond intellect. It is the mysterious land of the psyche, of what lies beyond death, a universe to which some Tibetans have the key and which their subtle soul seems to have explored as thoroughly as Western scientists have explored our physical universe. (Riencourt 1950, 262)
Thus, integral to the Western imagination of Tibet has been a notion of utopia, beginning in the late nineteenth century with theosophists and taken to its extreme in Lost Horizon (see Bishop 1989; Dodin and Rather 2001b; Klieger 1997)-Tibet as a sanctuary from the materialism and violence of modern times, a sanctuary for those disaffected with modernity and seeking peace and wisdom. The twining of wisdom/archive/library with contemporary Tibet is seen in the sentiments of many Western [30] supporters of Tibet. Interestingly, the vice-chancellor of Oxford, in his welcome note to the first International Seminar on Tibetan Studies in 1979, quoted from Hilton's novel: "When the High Lama asked him [Conway] whether Shangri-La was not unique in his experience, and if the Western world could offer anything in the least like it, he answered with a smile: 'Well, yes-to be quite frank, it reminds me very slightly of Oxford'" (BOD MS Or. Aris 15 n.d., 99).
"Tibet" in the contemporary period emerged out of a colonial representational regime (discussed in chapter 2) and the archive has played a crucial role in producing and circumscribing this regime. The archive of imaginaries of Tibet shaped the ways in which Tibet was encountered and in turn (re)produced new imageries to be added on to the archive. An important force that constrained and shaped this encounter was European imperialism, particularly its British variant in India.
THE IMPERIAL SCRIPTING OF EXOTICA TIBET
Contemporary journalistic reports about Tibet usually start off with the history of the "drastic opening" of Tibet in 1950 with the Chinese invasion. This reveals a practice of historical amnesia, for they rarely mention the destabilizing influence of Western imperialism in pre- 1950s Tibet. [31] As the next chapter will argue in greater detail, the imagination of Tibet as a place and its historical status vis-a-vis China are linked through Western imaginative and imperial practices. Here, the focus is on analyzing the poetics of representation within a historical account written by a British colonial official-Colonel Francis Younghusband, who played an important role in one of the most crucial historical moments of the modern imperial scripting of Tibet in the international imaginary-the 1903-4 Tibet mission, more commonly known as the Younghusband mission. The analysis shows the intermeshing of knowledge, power, representations, and encounters within an imperial ethos.
The beginning of the twentieth century saw British imperialism in its heyday, firmly established on the Indian subcontinent. However, Tibet remained tantalizingly outside the arena of European scrutiny, for it was closed to foreigners. The Younghusband mission was designed to force the Tibetans to come into the modern international (read imperial) world. In terms of attitude toward Tibet, it was preceded and accompanied by a mix of abhorrence (with the "priest-ridden" system) and fascination (with the nature and simplicity of common people). This ambivalence remained integral to Exotica Tibet during the duration of British imperial rule on the Indian subcontinent. The image of Tibet one can glean from Younghusband's account is that of a backward, quaint people deserving the guiding hand of an enlightened British imperialism. This image is quite different from the idealization of Tibet (though not of Tibetans) as seen in Hilton's utopian archive.
An Imperial Adventurer
Younghusband's India and Tibet (1910) purports to provide a history of the relations that have existed between India and Tibet from the time of Warren Hastings (late eighteenth century) to 1910, with a particular account of the 1903-4 mission to Lhasa. This story of the British aims toward "the establishment of ordinary neighbourly intercourse with Tibet" (vii) and Tibetans' refusal to oblige.
Reflecting the attitude of a "pioneer" and "frontiersman," the account is full of resentment against bureaucratic and political control exercised by the imperial government over its agents. Younghusband expresses nostalgia for a golden era when the agents of imperialism were left free to pursue their "destiny" without interference. Sarcastic about the centralization of power in London, he says that "the next mission to Lhasa will in all probability be led by a clerk from the Foreign Office in London" (103). Reflecting an aristocratic disdain for "democracy," he says that "as long as what an officer in the heart of Asia may do is contingent on the 'will' of 'men in the street' of grimy manufacturing towns in the heart of England, so long as our action be slow, clumsy, and hesitating, when it ought to be sharp and decisive" (133).
Younghusband is very conscious of the importance of credibility in maintaining imperial rule. For him, it was important to combat Russian intrigue in Tibet, as its loss would have been perceived by bordering Asiatic powers as a sign of British weakness and Russian supremacy. When signing the treaty in Potala Palace, Younghusband or
dered everyone to dress in full regalia in order to impress the Tibetans: "Those who have lived among Asiatics know that the fact of signing the treaty in the Potala was of as much value as the Treaty itself" (302). Troops lined the road to the Potala and "a battery to fire a salute or to bombard the Palace, as occasion might require, was stationed in a suitable position" (303).
The invasion was seen as an adventure: when Younghusband received the news that he was to go on the mission, he was elated- "Here, indeed, I felt was the chance of my life. I was once more alive. The thrill of adventure again ran through my veins" (96). About leaving Darjeeling for Chumbi, he writes, "To me there was nothing but the stir and thrill of an enterprise, which would ever live in history" (152). Reflecting a close relation between imperial adventures and scientific pursuits, he describes how at Khamba Jong, while some went out to shoot antelopes and Ovis ammon, others indulged in "botanizing or geologizing"; he himself went with "Mr Hayden to hunt for fossils, with Captain Walton to collect birds, and Colonel Prain to collect plants" (123). [32]
Imperialists were flexible (opportunist?) in their perception of natives. The latter were perceived as inherently divided or inherently united depending on the needs of the former. The deputation from Tashi Lama (with his seat of authority in Tashilunpo monastery in Shigatse, the second city of Tibet; he is usually seen as secondary to the Dalai Lama in temporal matters) pleaded innocence, and citing their fear of the wrath of the Lhasa government, requested Younghusband to withdraw to Yatung or across the frontier. Younghusband made it clear that "we must regard Tibetans as all one people, and hold them responsible for the actions of each" (124). Contrary to the self-perception of Tibetans, the British imposed a pan-Tibetan identity.
The mode of trivializing and infantilizing natives is evident as Younghusband writes that the impression left on him was that the Tibetans, "though excessively childish, were very pleasant, cheery people, and individually, probably quite well disposed towards us" (124). He records how he tried again and again to reason with the obstinate Tibetans who refused to recognize British supremacy: "When I saw these people so steeped in ignorance of what opposing the might of the British Empire really meant, I felt it my duty to reason with them… to save them from the results of their ignorance" (163). In retrospect, one could argue that the Tibetan delegates, who came to negotiate before the mission finally entered Lhasa, had a better understanding of imperialism. The delegates stressed that it was Tibetan custom to keep all strangers out, otherwise, following the British, other nations too would want to go to Lhasa and establish their agents (as they did in China). In contrast, speaking from the lofty heights of an "internationalism" that was actually based on imperial arrogance, Younghusband "reminded them that they lived apart from the rest of the world, and did not understand the customs of international discourse. To us the fact of their having kept the representative of a great Power waiting for a year to negotiate was a deep insult, which most Powers would resent by making war without giving any further chance for negotiation. But the British Government disliked making war if they could possibly help it" (229).
Distinct from the latter-day idealizations of Tibetan Buddhism for its pacifist character, Younghusband agrees that "Lamaism" had a pacifying effect, but he has a different evaluation of this peace: "But the peace that has been nurtured has been the quiescence of sloth and decadence… Peace, instead of harmony, has been their ideal-peace for the emasculated individual instead of harmony for the united and full-blooded whole" (314-15). The pacifism of Tibetans is contrasted unfavorably with the masculine, energetic, and outward-looking character of the British imperial project.
Carrying on and reinforcing the tradition of Western travelers to Tibet, Younghusband experienced an epiphany there. For a moment, a mystic Younghusband subsumed the imperialist Younghusband. At a camp outside Lhasa, he went off alone to the mountains and, in his own words, "gave myself up to all the emotions of this eventful time." As he writes, from the city came the Lama's words of peace and not hatred and
I was insensibly suffused with an almost intoxicating sense of elation and good-will. This exhilaration of the moment grew and grew till it thrilled through me with overpowering intensity. Never again could I think of evil, or ever again be enemy with any man. All nature and all humanity were bathed in a rosy glowing radiancy; and life for the future seemed nought but buoyancy and light…
and that single hour on leaving Lhasa was worth all the rest of a lifetime. (326-27)
Tibet seems to have had a transformative effect on the hardened imperialist. [33]
Thus India and Tibet reflects many characteristics that were typical of imperial literature on Tibet during the time. It shows Tibet as a land of contrasts (between the lamas and the common people) and a land of religion (if a degraded one). It indulges in essentialism and stereotyping and deploys various representational strategies including gaze, debasement, moralization, infantilization, and self-affirmation. In contrast to the image of Tibet as a utopian archive, Younghusband's account is mainly about self-affirmation, a defense of the British imperial project as ennobling for the British and as civilizing for others. An incomplete passage from the discarded notes used for the book reflects Younghusband's confidence in his invasion:"To wantonly invade Tibet in sheer lust of conquest and merely for the sake of painting the map red would of course have been wrong. But" (IOR: MSS EUR/F197/358 n.d.).
He wrote further, "I favour forward policy, which simply recognises that great civilized Powers cannot by any possibility permanently ignore and disregard semi-civilized peoples on their borders, but must inevitably establish, and in time regularize, intercourse with them, and should therefore seize opportunities of humanizing that intercourse "(Younghusband 1910, 428; emphases added).
Youngblood justified the mission, asserting that the Tibetans had "asked me to take them under British protection-having come to the conclusion from what they had seen of us, that we were preferable to the Chinese" (IOR: MSS EUR/F197/108 n.d., 3). While Younghusband was criticized by his own government as well as a large section of the press (see Mehra 2005), he had his defenders. At a lecture delivered in London by a member of the Tibet mission, Douglas Freshfield, the chairman of session assured the audience that the natives whose sensitivities had been hurt by the invasion "would eventually come to see the English were right" and quoted a poem:
The East bow'd low before the blast,
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again (Freshfield 1905, 273)
TIBET: A LAND OF RELIGION
Tibet's association with religion can be traced back to the early modern age when the first Western travelers were mostly Christian missionaries. [34] The Western assessment of religion as the main, if not the sole, defining feature of Tibetan life and culture has differed over time. Western missionaries as well as many travelers, especially in the beginning of the twentieth century, considered Tibetan culture barbaric and degenerate. However, as the century progressed and the merits of Christianity as well as secularism came under scrutiny in the West, Tibetan Buddhism [35] came to be idealized.
For most Western commentators until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Tibetan "preoccupation" with religion was irrational, superstitious, and downright degenerate, at least when compared to classical Buddhism. This unfavorable comparison between Tibetan and classical Buddhism is not surprising: the latter is a hypostatized phenomenon, created by Europe and controlled by it. It was against this classical Buddhism that all Buddhisms of the modern Orient were to be judged and found lacking (Lopez 1998, 7; see also Lopez 1995). Lamaism was the most degenerate and inau-thentic of all. This sentiment is clearly reflected in Waddell's work, which is characterized by modes of stereotyping and essentialism and representational strategies of gaze, classification, debasement, negation, moralization, and self-affirmation. In contrast, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is marked by modes of stereotyping, essentialism, and e
xoticism along with the strategies of differentiation, idealization, affirmation, gerontification, and self-criticism.
Waddell and the Study of Degenerate Lamaism
Waddell, the foremost expert on Tibetan Buddhism at the turn of the twentieth century, bolstered widespread negative images of Tibet ostensibly based on scientific and ethnographic foundations. He had the right credentials to be an expert: he had learned the Tibetan language, he sought to study the religion systematically [36] and scientifically, and most important, he was a white European male.
Waddell's accounts of his journey into Tibetan religion (The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, 1895/1972) as well as into the Tibetan landscape (Lhasa and Its Mysteries, 1905) are filled with references to a degenerate form of Buddhism, an exploitative priesthood, and a superstitious peasantry. He writes, "The bulk of the
Lamaist cults comprise much deep-rooted devil -worship and sorcery… for Lamaism is only thinly and imperfectly varnished over with Buddhist symbolism, beneath which the sinister growth of poly-demonist superstition darkly appears" (1972, xi). In Tibet, the impure form of Buddhism became "a disastrous parasitic disease which fastened on to the vitals of the land… a cloak to the worst form of oppressive devil-worship" (1905, 25). At the same time, "lamaism" is not all bad as "it preserves for us much of the old-world lore and petrified beliefs of our Aryan ancestors" (1972, 4). In a typical blind imperialist un-self-reflexivity, Waddell finds the Tibetan Regent "hopelessly biased" about the religion of the British (1905, 408), while viewing his own biases about the religion of the Tibetans as objective.
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