This 200-year-old mummified monk is 'not dead but meditating' ;

 Lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolises of the preaching Sutra. 
A 200-year-old mummified monk discovered in Mongolia may not be dead but in a "very deep meditation", claims a Buddhist monk. The body was discovered from an animal hide last week in the Songinokhairkhan district of Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar.
Forensic examinations are being carried out on the remains, which investigators believe belong to a man who may have been a Lama, or a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism.
Various theories have come up after the body was found. An expert has claimed the monk may have been in a rare spiritual state known as "tukdam", reported The Independent . Tukdam is an honorific term for meditative practice and experience that is frequently used to refer to the period following the death of a great master, during which time they are absorbed in luminosity.

 

 

Ganhugiyn Purevbata, founder and professor of the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University, told The Siberian Times: "Lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolises of the preaching Sutra.

"This is a sign that the Lama is not dead, but is in a very deep meditation according to the ancient tradition of Buddhist lamas." The mummified remains have reportedly been taken for examination at the Ulaanbataar National Centre of Forensic Expertise, according to The Telegraph.
According to a daily in Mongolia it has been suggested that the mummified monk was a teacher of the Buryat Buddhist Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov must died in 1927 while meditating. It is understood the body was kept in a coffin packed with salt and left until 2002 when it was once again exhumed, 75 years after Itigilov's death.
An expert said while the salt in the coffin may have played a part in slowing decay, other factors may have included the soil and the coffin's condition, adding the possibility of "some secret process of embalming" could not be ruled out.

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