A
Chinese statue of a sitting Buddha has revealed a hidden surprise: Inside,
scientists found the mummified remains of a monk who lived nearly 1,000 years
ago.
The mummy may have once been a respected Buddhist monk who,
after death, was worshipped as an enlightened being, one who helped the living
end their cycle of suffering and death, said Vincent van Vilsteren, an
archaeology curator at the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, where the mummy
(from inside the Buddha statue) was on exhibit last year.
The secret hidden in the gold-painted statue was first
discovered when preservationists began restoring the statue many years ago. But
the human remains weren't studied in detail until researchers took scans and
samples of tissue from the mummy late last year.
The mysterious statue is now on display at the Hungarian
Natural History Museum in Budapest. [Image Gallery: Inca Child Mummies]
Mysterious history
The papier-mâché statue, which has the dimensions, roughly,
of a seated person and is covered in lacquer and gold paint, has a murky
history. It was likely housed in a monastery in Southeastern China for
centuries. It may have been smuggled from the country during the Cultural
Revolution, a tumultuous period of social upheaval in Communist China starting
in 1966 when Chairman Mao Zedong urged citizens to seize property, dismantle
educational systems and attack "bourgeois" cultural institutions.
The statue was bought and sold again in the Netherlands, and
in 1996, a private owner decided to have someone fix the chips and cracks that
marred the gold-painted exterior. However, when the restorer removed the statue
from its wooden platform, he noticed two pillows emblazoned with Chinese text
placed beneath the statues' knees. When he removed the pillows, he discovered
the human remains.
"He looked right into the bottom of this monk,"
van Vilsteren told Live Science. "You can see part of the bones and tissue
of his skin."
The mummy was sitting on a rolled textile carpet covered in
Chinese text.
Researchers then used radioactive isotopes of carbon to
determine that the mummy likely lived during the 11th or 12th century, while
the carpet was about 200 years older, van Vilsteren said. (Isotopes are
variations of elements with different numbers of neutrons.)
In 2013, researchers conducted a CT scan of the mummy at
Mannheim University Hospital in Germany, revealing the remains in unprecedented
detail. In a follow-up scan at the Meander Medical Center in Amersfoort,
Netherlands, the researchers discovered that what they thought was lung tissue
actually consisted of tiny scraps of paper with Chinese text on them.
The
text found with the mummy suggests he was once the high-status monk Liuquan,
who may have been worshipped as a Buddha, or a teacher who helps to bring
enlightenment after his death.
Last year, the mummy was on display at the "Mummies –
Life Beyond Death" exhibit at the Drents Museum in Netherlands, before
moving to the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest.
Common practice
Mummies from this period are fairly common in Asia. For
instance, researchers in Mongolia recently found a 200-year-old mummified monk
still in the lotus position, the traditional cross-legged meditative pose.
It's not clear exactly how Liuquan became a mummy, but
"in China, and also in Japan and Laos and Korea, there's a tradition of
self-mummification," van Vilsteren said.
In some cases, aging Buddhist monks would slowly starve
themselves to eliminate decay-promoting fat and liquid, while subsisting mainly
on pine needles and resin to facilitate the mummification process, according to
"Living Buddhas: The Self-Mummified Monks of Yamagata, Japan,"
(McFarland, 2010). Once these monks were near death, they would be buried alive
with just a breathing tube to keep them holding on so they could meditate until
death.
"There are historical records of some aging monks who
have done this practice," van Vilsteren said. "But if this is also
the case with this monk is not known."
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