The essay will conclude with brief remarks on the question of Tibet today. In the hope of grasping the complex history of the British idea of Tibet, I propose to revisit a set of textual moments that document its genealogical mutations and conceptual changes, including George Bogle's accounts of his mission to Tibet in 1774, Thomas Manning's narrative of his trip to Tibet in the early nineteenth century, and finally, James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon.

The idea of Tibet reveals both its limitations and creativities. Orientalist romanticizadon of Tibet emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and culminated in the creation of Shangri-La in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon (1933). (4) In this collective narrative of Tibet, the British empire played a singular role in the constituting of an official structure of knowledge about Tibet, of what Edward Said has called a 'corporate institution', (5) in which to understand, discuss, represent, and deal with Tibet. There has been copious critical and historical analysis of how Tibet is invented and transformed into a utopia of spiritual fulfillment by committed missionaries, ambitious adventurers, imperialist agents, and New Age spiritualists. If Tibet is not just a mark on the map, but a historical invention and geographical imaginary for different contexts, it is not one Tibet, but multiple Tibets that we must consider. Tibet, as we know it, has acquired different identities and manifestations, just as many other places of historical and cultural significance. In one sense, there is no nature except human nature, and there is no place that is not at the same time physical and cultural. Tibet is a historical space to which human dramas have given not just meaning and value, but also a rich range of possibilities for its interpretation, representation, and utilization.

Is it a real place, or is it what Orville Schell has aptly called a 'Virtual Tibet'? (3) Indeed, is there such a place called 'Tibet' as we know it? In thinking about the discursive formation of the idea of Tibet, therefore, we must also consider human consequences of the efforts to fictionalize place, landscape, and geography. Tibet is a landscape, a fictional space, and an idea.

In its various forms, Tibet is read, represented, and imagined as the sacred place of Buddhism, the origin of wisdom of life, the abode inhabited by world-controlling masters, the source of superhuman power, an endangered archive of humanity, a Shangri-La, and a timeless utopia where the span of human life could be restored to its imagined longevity. Perhaps more than any other part of China, Tibet has been romanticized and mythologized. Mythical space is also a response of feeling and imagination to fundamental human needs. Mythical space is an intellectual construct. For all knowledge, one must first direct attention to its sources or origins.

Strange story tibet mystifies