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26-593: The museum was the dream of Mihoko Koyama (after whom it is named), founder of the religious organization Shinji Shumeikai which is now said to have some 300,000 members worldwide. Furthermore, in the 1990s Koyama commissioned the museum to be built close to the Shumei temple in the Shiga mountains. Meanwhile, the Church of World Messianity ( 世界救世教 , Sekai Kyūseikyō ) , the parent organization from which this Shumeikai came, had opened

52-504: A New York Times gossip column in which he reveals that his cultural inspiration for Shangri-La, if it is anywhere, is more than 250 km north of Muli on the route travelled by Huc and Gabet. Between 2002 and 2004 a series of expeditions were led by author and film maker Laurence Brahm in western China which determined that the Shangri-La mythical location in Hilton's book Lost Horizon

78-734: A 1936 interview for The New York Times , Hilton states that he used "Tibetan material" from the British Museum , particularly the travelogue of two French priests, Évariste Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet , to provide the Tibetan cultural and Buddhist spiritual inspiration for Shangri-La. Huc and Gabet travelled a round trip between Beijing and Lhasa in 1844–1846 on a route more than 250 kilometres (160 mi) north of Yunnan. Their famous travelogue, first published in French in 1850, went through many editions in many languages. A popular "condensed translation"

104-487: A method of food cultivation. They also practice johrei , a type of spiritual healing. Adherents of Shumei believe that, in building architectural masterpieces in remote locations, they are restoring the Earth's balance. The Miho Museum was commissioned by Mihoko Koyama, who was an adherent of Okada. The architect I. M. Pei had earlier designed the bell tower at Misono, the international headquarters and spiritual center of

130-533: A world free of sickness, poverty, and strife could be achieved through spiritual healing, a reverence for nature, and the appreciation of art and beauty. The movement claims that no conflicts exist between itself and other spiritual paths that seek universal well-being. Its members come from diverse backgrounds, and many maintain and deepen their own beliefs while participating in Shumei. Further, Shumei holds that it maintains dialogue with people of all spiritual paths to promote tolerance and peace. The head organization

156-562: Is a hanging scroll from the Masuda family's emakimono Jigoku zoshi ( ja ), which was cut out and reworked into hanging scrolls. The museum's collection also includes Zo to kujira-zu byōbu (Elephant and Whale) , a late masterpiece by Itō Jakuchū , one of Japan's most popular painters. This work made headlines in Japan in 2008 when it was discovered in an old house in the Hokuriku region . Among

182-634: Is currently based near Shigaraki , Shiga , Japan. "It was through illness that I was privileged to become God’s Student."—Meishusama Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1882, Meishusama ( Mokichi Okada ) spent most of his youth suffering from poverty and various diseases. At the age of 37, Meishusama began searching for the spiritual meaning of life and joined the Shinto-related religious group Oomoto. Followers claim that miraculous events followed one after another after joining. In 1934, he started his own organization called

208-701: The "stunning" MOA Museum of Art in the mountains behind Atami in 1982. Since its opening in 1997, the museum has been run by the Shumei Cultural Foundation. Takeshi Umehara , a scholar of philosophy and religion, served as the museum's first director. The Miho Museum collection began with Japanese art , including Shinto and Buddhist art, paintings , ceramics , lacquerware and tea ceremony utensils, collected by Mihoko Koyama for over 40 years. The collection consists of 3,000 pieces of Japanese and Oriental art, of which 250 to 300 are on display at any one time. Special exhibitions of Japanese art from

234-531: The 1933 novel Lost Horizon by English author James Hilton . Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery , enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise , particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel, the people who live in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond

260-548: The American architect I. M. Pei to design the Miho Museum. Pei's design, which he came to call Shangri-La , is executed in a hilly and forested landscape. Approximately three-quarters of the 17,400 square meter building is situated underground, carved out of a rocky mountaintop. The roof is a large glass and steel construction, while the exterior and interior walls and floor are made of a warm beige-colored limestone from France –

286-462: The Japanese government announced the designation of three hanging scrolls in the museum's collection as Important Cultural Properties. This brings the total number of Important Cultural Properties in the museum's collection to nine. Two of the hanging scrolls were made by cutting out sections of the emakimono (picture scroll) Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga and reworking them into hanging scrolls. The other

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312-507: The Kannon Society of Japan. He believed that Kannon, the deity of compassion, was empowering and guiding him. Meishusama (Mokichi Okada) taught that a world free of sickness, poverty, and discord is within everyone’s reach through the spiritual healing of Jyorei, the practice of Natural Agriculture, and the appreciation of Art and Beauty. Shumei believes in the pursuit of beauty through art, appreciation of nature and "natural agriculture",

338-590: The Muli monastery in this remote region was the model for James Hilton's Shangri-La, which they thought Hilton learned about from articles on this area in several National Geographic magazines in the late 1920s and early 1930s written by Austrian-American explorer Joseph Rock . Vaill completed a film based on their research, "Finding Shangri-La", which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. However, Michael McRae unearthed an obscure James Hilton interview from

364-511: The Shumei organisation. Mihoko Koyama and her daughter, Hiroko Koyama, again commissioned Pei to design the Miho Museum. The bell tower can be seen from the windows of the museum. Founders Hall was designed by Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki . This article related to religion in Japan is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Shangri-La Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains , described in

390-572: The collection are held several times a year in the North Wing, and permanent exhibitions of other areas are held in the South Wing. As of March 2022, the museum owns six of the more than 10,000 Important Cultural Properties of arts and crafts designated by the Japanese government . These included two Buddhist statues , a Buddhist painting, a Buddhist scripture, a quiver , and a tea bowl. In November 2022,

416-544: The items in the collection were acquired in collaboration with the art dealer Noriyoshi Horiuchi over the course of just six years, and some have little or no known provenance . In 2001 the museum acknowledged that a sixth-century statue of a Bodhisattva in its collection was the same sculpture which had been stolen from a public garden in Shandong province, China, in 1994, agreeing with the Chinese government to return it in 2007. At

442-422: The normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. Ancient Tibetan scriptures mention the existence of seven such places as Nghe-Beyul Khembalung . Khembalung is one of several Utopia beyuls (hidden lands similar to Shangri-La) which Tibetan Buddhists believe that Padmasambhava established in the 9th century CE as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife. In

468-640: The objects in the collection are more than 1,200 objects that appear to have been produced in Achaemenid Central Asia. Some scholars have claimed these objects are part of the Oxus Treasure , lost shortly after its discovery in 1877 and rediscovered in Afghanistan in 1993. The presence of a unique findspot for both the Miho acquisitions and the British Museum 's material, however, has been challenged. Many of

494-457: The organization as a spin-off of the Church of World Messianity. The purpose of the organization was to promote the health, happiness and harmony of all people by applying the insights of Mokichi Okada , the founder of Church of World Messianity. According to the organization, the founder is not Mihoko Koyama, but Mokichi Okada. Reverently known as Meishusama within Shumei, Mokichi Okada taught that

520-489: The same material used by Pei in the reception hall of the Louvre . The structural engineer for this project was Leslie E. Robertson Associates. Pei continued to make changes to the design of the galleries during construction as new pieces were acquired for the collection. Pei had earlier designed the bell tower at Misono, the international headquarters and spiritual center of the Shumei organization. The bell tower can be seen from

546-726: The time of the agreement, the Chinese government publicly stated that the museum had purchased the Buddha statue in good faith on the open market and had not committed any fraud. Highlights of the collections have been featured in traveling exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1996, as well as the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (Vienna, Austria) in 1999. Mihoko Koyama and her daughter, Hiroko Koyama, commissioned

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572-618: The tourist destinations of Zhongdian County, claim the title. In 2001, Zhongdian County in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture , northwestern Yunnan province, officially renamed to Shangri-la . It is known as "香格里拉" (Xiānggélǐlā) in Chinese, "སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ།" in Tibetan and "ज्ञानगंज" [gyanganj] in India. American explorers Ted Vaill and Peter Klika visited the Muli area of southern Sichuan Province in 1999, and claimed that

598-510: The windows of the museum. Shinji Shumeikai Shinji Shūmeikai ( 神慈秀明会 ) (often abbreviated to Shumei ) is a Japanese new religious movement and organization founded in 1970 by Mihoko Koyama . Prior to founding the organization, she was president of the Shumei Church, the largest internal association of the Sekai Kyūseikyō ( 世界救世教 , Church of World Messianity ) , and founded

624-623: Was based on references to the southern Yunnan Province from articles published by National Geographic's first resident explorer Joseph Rock . On 2 December 2010, OPB televised one of Martin Yan 's Hidden China episodes, "Life in Shangri-La", in which Yan said that "Shangri-La" is the actual name of a real town in the hilly and mountainous region in southwestern Yunnan Province, frequented by both Han and Tibetan locals. Martin Yan visited arts and craft shops and local farmers as they harvested crops, and sampled their cuisine. However, this town

650-606: Was not originally named Shangri-La, but was renamed so in 2001 to increase tourism. In the "Shangri-La" episode of the BBC documentary series In Search of Myths and Heroes , television presenter and historian Michael Wood suggested that the legendary Shangri-La might be the abandoned city of Tsaparang , and that its two great temples were once home to the kings of Guge in modern Tibet. The Travel Channel in 2016 aired two episodes of Expedition Unknown that followed host Josh Gates to Lo Manthang , Nepal and its surrounding areas, including

676-809: Was published in the United Kingdom in 1928. Hilton visited the Hunza Valley , located in Gilgit−Baltistan , close to the China–Pakistan border , a few years before Lost Horizon was published. Being an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, enclosed on the western end of the Himalayas, it closely matches the description in the novel, and is believed to have inspired Hilton's physical description of Shangri-La. Today various places, such as parts of southern Kham in northwestern Yunnan province, including

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