Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West

“Lively and engaging . . . raises important questions about how Eastern religions are often co-opted, assimilated and misunderstood by Western culture.” —Publishers Weekly

Donald Lopez provides the first cultural history of the strange encounter between Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Charting the flights of Western fantasies of Tibet and its Buddhist legacy, Lopez presents fanciful visions of Tibetan life and religion, ranging from the utopian to the demonic. He examines, among much else, the politics of the term “Lamaism”, a pejorative name for Tibet's religion; the various theosophical, psychedelic, and New Age purposes served by The Tibetan Book of the Dead; the strange case of the Englishman with three eyes; and the unexpected history of the most famous of all Buddhist mantras, om mani padme hum. Throughout, Lopez demonstrates how myths of Tibet pervade both the products of pop culture and learned scholarly works.

In his new preface to this anniversary edition, Lopez returns to the metaphors of prison and paradise to illuminate the state of Tibetan Buddhism—both in exile and in Tibet—as monks and nuns still seek to find a way home. Prisoners of Shangri-La remains a timely and vital inquiry into Western fantasies of Tibet.

“Proceeding with care and precision, Lopez reveals the extent to which scholars have behaved like intellectual colonialists. . . . Someone had to burst the bubble of pop Tibetology, and few could have done it as resoundingly as Lopez.” —Booklist

“Lopez's book shows that . . . when the West has looked at Tibet, all that it has seen is a distorted reflection of itself.” —Ben Jackson, Times Higher Education Supplement

“A fine scholarly work.” —Kirkus Reviews