Buddhist mummy
{{Short description|Incorrupt bodies of Buddhist monks and nuns}}
{{self-published|date=February 2019}}
File:The Mumified Monk.jpg, a Thai Buddhist monk who died while meditating in 1973.]]
Buddhist mummies, also called flesh body bodhisattvas, full body sariras, 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.{{cite book|title=The rhetoric of immediacy: a cultural critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism|first=Bernard|last= Faure|page=150|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1994|
isbn=0-691-02963-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LyfysMjKooEC&pg=PA149}} In 2015, the Hungarian Natural History Museum exhibited a Buddhist mummy hidden inside a statue of Buddha, during its first tour outside China.{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/news/ct-scan-reveals-mummified-monk-inside-ancient-buddha-statue|title=CT Scan Reveals Mummified Monk Inside Ancient Buddha Statue|publisher=|accessdate=13 December 2017}}
Methods
Self-mummification is a common method in China. Examples of Monks who practiced this include Tao Wing (道榮) or Yuet Kai (月溪).{{Cite web |date=2019-06-27 |title=香港的高僧肉身像 {{!}} 溫暖人間 |url=https://buddhistcompassion.org/content/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%9A%84%E9%AB%98%E5%83%A7%E8%82%89%E8%BA%AB%E5%83%8F |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=buddhistcompassion.org |language=zh-hant}} Some practitioners have covered their own bodies with clay or salt.
According to Victor H. Mair in the Discovery Channel series The Mystery of the Tibetan Mummy, the self-mummification of a Tibetan monk, who died ca. 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.[http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/6920_594072,001600520003.htm Trekker finds Buddhist Lama mummy in a mountain hideaway in North India.]{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
Some Shingon monks in Japan practiced Sokushinbutsu (即身仏), which caused their own death by adhering to a wood-eating diet consisting of salt, nuts, seeds, roots, pine bark, and urushi 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 a buddha, granting favor provided it was preserved.{{cite journal |last=Hori |first=Ichiro |year=1962 |title=Self-Mummified Buddhas in Japan. An Aspect of the Shugen-Dô ("Mountain Asceticism") Sect |journal=History of Religions |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=222–242 |doi=10.1086/462445 |jstor=1062053|s2cid=162314904 }} Japan banned unburying in 1879, and assisted suicide—including religious suicide—is now illegal.
See also
References
{{reflist|2}}
Sources
- 内藤正敏 (1999/5/10). ミイラ信仰の研究.（京都）法蔵館. {{ISBN|978-4-8318-7244-9}}
- 日本ミイラ研究グループ (1993). 日本・中国ミイラ信仰の研究. 平凡社. {{ISBN|4-582-42002-8}}
External links
- [http://mbingenheimer.net/publications/ritzinger-bingenheimer.buddhistMummies.pdf Justin Ritzinger and Marcus Bingenheimer (2006), Whole-body relics in Chinese Buddhism – Previous Research and Historical Overview]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20131117013817/http://www.kervan.unito.it/contents/documents/3_7_TRA.pdf Stefania Travagnin (2006), SHI CIHANG 航慈釋 THE FIRST CASE OF MUMMIFIED BUDDHIST IN TAIWAN]
- [http://mbingenheimer.net/publications/bingenheimer.roushenPusa.pdf Marcus Bingenheimer (2006), Roushen pusa and Corpus Integrum – Whole Body Relics in Buddhism and Christianity.]
- [http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~asiamajor/pdf/2002b/05Gildow,%20final.pdf Douglas Gildow and Marcus Bingenheimer, Buddhist Mummification in Taiwan: Two Case Studies]
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