CT Scan Reveals That Statue of the Buddha Is Actually a Mummy

(Photo: M. Elsevier Stokmans)

It looks like a statue of the Buddha. It is, in a way. But inside, there are the mummified remains of a human body. Tradition holds that they are a Buddhist monk who lived around the year 1100 AD. Last year, the statue left China for the first time. The Drents Museum, an art and history museum in Assen, The Netherlands, arranged for it to be viewed through a CT scanning machine.

-via TYWKIWDBI

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That`s right, it is not a statue of the Buddha. So please do not use this term in a title. Shakyamuni Buddhas statues have atributes related to 32 major and 80 minor atrybutes of Old Shaka and Buddhas in general so 6 Buddhas of the past (Vipashin, Shikin, Vishvabu, Krakuchanda, Kanakamuni, Kashyapa)... not all of them were always used in a statues, but at least a few, so no ushnisha, no hear between eyebraws, no long years and on and on... robe okesa with a ring has been started much later, Shakyamuni himself has used simpler robe like present theravada monks and is shown in statues robed like that, he did not used "kimono" robes like present koromo in Japan or sth. similar in China... - second mumification was very comon in Tibet, China and Japan, so often very respected masters like VIth patriarch of Zen (Chan) Hui Neng just after or many years later after passing away were treated this way... first of all their bodies were still in meditation posture and often for months or even years not spoiling and smelling with unice fragrance insted roten meat, keeping wormth in all remains or near heart... sometimes were just dry after some time, or oiled, couvered by laka and sometimes by various even harder materials... so this is a statue of Chinese Buddhist master or respected monk turned respectedly in to a statue, probably after he passed away becouse of lower jaw held by holder visible on a picture, so a bit different than some masters in a state between samadhi and death, when all muscles are functioning properly and body is left for months untouched... in some traditions in Japan for exemple the process of passing away is very comlexed with speciall herbs, liquides, certain practices, when aware of death coming and advanced practitioner is preparing himself for it... often for future generations their bodies were additionaly preparated to become an object of cult... please, a lot more could be said about it, but not that somebody was mumyfied alife...