It’s not surprising that Southeast Asia is home to countless ancient Buddha statues, but when one of those statues contains a mummified monk, that is certainly a surprise.

A mummified monk is exactly what researchers at Norway’s Meander Medical Center found when they placed a 1,000-year-old Chinese Buddha statue inside a CT scanner. Researchers believe the statue contains the body of a Buddhist master named Liuquan, who may have practiced the tradition of “self-mummification” to reach his final resting place. . .

Scientists and medical staff performed the CT scan that revealed Liuquan’s mediating body in full detail. They also used an endoscope to examine the abdominal cavity of the mummy inside, and they discovered that the organs had been removed and replaced with paper scraps that were printed with ancient Chinese characters. It isn’t clear what specifically was written on those paper scraps.

If you were a monk that wanted to achieve enlightenment and be revered as a “living Buddha,” self-mummification was your brutal option. Monks on this spiritual path would starve themselves for almost a decade, subsisting on water, seeds and nuts. Then, they’d be sealed inside the statue and ingest roots, pine bark and a toxic, tree sap-based tea for another 1,000 days — eating and breathing through a small tube. Eventually death would come, and monks mummified in this manner were said to have reached enlightenment. (Read more about the find inside the acient Buddha statue HERE)

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