Three Sacred Mountains in Daocheng - Landmark of "Shangri-La"

Daocheng is located at the southwestern edge of Sichuan Province, near the conjunction of Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. Its ancient name is "Daoba", a Tibetan word meaning a wide stretch of open land at the mouth of a mountain gully. The Daocheng Plateau consists of the Gongga Ridge and the Haizi Mountain, both are part of the Hengduan Mountains. The two ranges stand opposite to each other north and south, accounting for almost a third of the area of Daocheng. From these meandering ranges emerge the three sacred mountains of Daocheng - Xiannari, Yangmaiyong and Xiannuoduoji.
Since the ancient times, the three sacred mountains have been a sacred place for Tibetan Buddhism.
Xiannari (6,032 meters), the main peak of the three sacred mountains, is first among Daocheng's high peaks. According to legend it is the incarnation of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy Guangyin or Avalokitesvara. Its slopes are vast, its gradient gentle, the mountain looks like Great Buddha sitting in peace, graceful and poised. Yangmaiyong (5,958 meters), the southern peak, means the Bodhisattva Manjusri, dignified and stately, gentle, quiet, noble and impeccable. Xiannuoduoji (5,958 meters), the eastern peak, means Buddha with warriors' hands, resembling a young man of strong character, tall and handsome.
Within a thousand square kilometer range of the three mountains, rise dozens of peaks, like a myriad of stars surrounding the moon. To Tibetan thinking, they represent Buddhist gods performing their role of protecting the three sacred mountains.
At their foot lie wide pasturelands, crisscrossed by brooks and streams flowing gently into lakes. There are woods and bushes too, and waterfalls formed by melting ice and snow creating captivating scenes. Year after year, they have flowed in silence and this land of mystery had remained unknown to the world outside.
In 1928, when the American botanist Dr. Joseph Rock advanced into the Gongga Ridge area, "the clouds suddenly cleared to reveal the true look of the Thunder and Lightning Guardian - a sharply defined pyramid". Stumbling upon this holy place by mistake, he shouted in surprise, thus bursting open the gate of the "garden preserved by God".
Many year later, the name of "Shangri-La" - the imaginary utopia described in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon in 1933 - was given to this place, a earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia - a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.