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Buddhist mummies, also called flesh bodybodhisattvas, full bodysariras, or living buddhas (Sokushinbutsu) refer to the bodies of Buddhist monks and nuns that remain incorrupt, without any traces of deliberate mummification by another party. Many were destroyed or lost to history.[1] In 2015, theHungarian Natural History Museum exhibited a Buddhist mummy hidden inside a statue ofBuddha, during its first tour outside China.[2]
Self-mummification is a common method in China. Examples of Monks who practiced this include Tao Wing (道榮) or Yuet Kai (月溪).[3] Some practitioners have covered their own bodies with clay or salt.According toVictor H. Mair in theDiscovery Channel seriesThe Mystery of the Tibetan Mummy, the self-mummification of a Tibetan monk, who diedca. 1475 and whose body was retrieved relatively incorrupt in the 1990s, was achieved by the sophisticated practices of meditation, coupled with prolonged starvation and slow self-suffocation using a special belt that connected the neck with his knees in a lotus position.[4]SomeShingon monks in Japan practicedSokushinbutsu (即身仏), whichcaused their own death by adhering to a wood-eating diet consisting of salt, nuts, seeds, roots, pine bark, andurushi tea. They were then buried alive in a pine-wood box with the only opening being a tube for air, meditating in lotus position and occasionally ringing a bell to signal they were alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the box would be dug up and treated as abuddha, granting favor provided it was preserved.[5] Japan banned unburying in 1879, and assisted suicide—including religious suicide—is now illegal.