Blavatsky and Shambhala

The History of Shambhala, a blog started this year posting parts of Don Croner’s travel writing from Central Asia, carries a lengthy evaluation of Blavatsky’s use of the term Shambhala. This piece was originally posted on one of Croner’s travel blogs two years ago, but it is worth a second look.

There is little if any evidence to suggest that even in her own lifetime she did anything to promote the legend of Shambhala. In fact, as we shall see, in the entire fifteen volumes of her collected writing she mentions Shambhala only a couple of times, and this Shambhala was quite different from the Tibetan version of Shambhala which would later be disseminated in the West.

Those who first learned about Shambhala from Neo-Theosophists like Leadbeater, Bailey, and others might naturally assume that their conception of Shambhala originated with Blavatsky, the founder and guiding light behind the Theosophical Society. This would not seem to be the case.