Trekker finds Buddhist Lama mummy in a mountain hideaway in North India

HindustanTimes.com ^ | New Delhi, March 2 2004 | Anuj Singh

[AM2000]

This is an exclusive shot of a Tibetan monk called Sangha Tenzin found mummified inside a tomb at Ghuen village in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.

Professor Victor Mair, consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, who has researched on the mummy, says it is at least 500 years old. "He died around the time that Colombus discovered America." (I had taken Mair to see the mummy while he was visiting India as part of a team studying Asian mummies.)

Apparently, the monk had given up his life while meditating in the position he was found mummified.

Ghuen villagers have known about the mummy since 1975, when an earthquake struck the region and brought down a part of the tomb. Ghuen falls in a forward area close to the China border. It is a restricted area under the control of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. Therefore, few people outside of Ghuen ever found out about the mummy (until few ITBP men took me to see it during my trip to the region in 1997. I went back to photograph it in 2001).

The mummy is remarkably well preserved for its age. Its skin is unbroken. There is hair on the head as well. Mair says it is partly to do with the extreme cold and dry air of the region and partly to do with the meditation rituals that ancient high monks practiced to get rid of a public menace. "Slow starvation in the last few months of his life reduced the body fat and shrunk parts of the body that would have been liable to putrefaction."

The mummy also did not collapse and disintegrate because of a jute restrainer, which runs around the mummy's neck and passes between the thighs.

There is a greater significance of the restrainer. It points to a rare and esoteric practice. Mair says, "It kept the monk in an upright position and enabled him to focus on his meditation. If he relaxed, the restrainer knot would have tightened around his neck, cutting off oxygen supply and suffocating him... It was essentially to keep him in a good posture."

Very little is available in Buddhist texts in India that describe this practice. Only one manuscript in the library of Tabo monastery has reference to it.

From his understanding of Buddhist rituals and practices, Mair also says this kind of a practice is rare. "It is only known among certain sects in Japan and Tibet. They tended to be highly esoteric and lived in the mountains. The practice itself is part of the Dzogchen tradition within Nyingma (sect)."

Ghuen, incidentally, is about 50 km from the Tabo monastery, which is the oldest surviving Buddhist establishment in the Trans-Himalayas, dating back 1000 years. Ghuen also straddles an ancient trading route over which spices, wool, salt, precious stones and sugar moved between India and Tibet. Monks and high lamas frequented this route.

Local legends say, about 600 years ago when Ghuen was troubled by scorpions, the monk, Sangha Tenzin, squatted down to mediate in the prescribed manner, after asking his disciples to entomb him. It is believed when his soul left the body, a rainbow appeared across the sky and scorpions mysteriously vanished from the village.

(Anuj Singh, a nomadic photographer, tells you about his find.)

[Howie66]

Are we certain that this is NOT Hitlery before her makeup is applied?

[JoJo Gunn]

He's dead, Jim!

[Tribune7]

That's trekker not trekkie.

[Hank Rearden]

Looks like he kept an eye out for evil spirits. Oooga-booga.

[Steelerfan]

I have to admit, that was my first thought as well!

I lack the knowledge to ping the glyphs list, but hopefully someone else can.

[JoJo Gunn]

Is there a difference?

[Redcoat LI]

"Are we certain that this is NOT Hitlery before her makeup is applied?"

That was uncalled for.

What do you have against mummified monks?

[Preech1]

Fascinating..

[sergeantdave]

Interesting. I wonder if this monk would be considered a tulpa in Tibetan buddhism.

[TigersEye]

Sloppy reporting.

"It kept the monk in an upright position and enabled him to focus on his meditation. If he relaxed, the restrainer knot would have tightened around his neck, cutting off oxygen supply and suffocating awakening him... It was essentially to keep him in a good posture. (and awake)"

It is believed when his soul consciousness left the body, a rainbow appeared across the sky and scorpions mysteriously vanished from the village.

Looks like Sangha fell asleep on the job!

[TigersEye]

What is a tulpa?

[Lancey Howard]

(( ping ))

[Migraine]

About 20+ years ago, NBC did a 12-hour miniseries called "Marco Polo". It was very well done and included a visit up to one of the caves where a certain man, called "the Immortal" spent his time meditating, and at one point, he said, because of his inertia and diet, he was "slowly becoming a mummy". He looked about like the guy in this photo, too. Does anyone else remember the miniseries? I'm glad I recorded it on the first VCR I ever owned; it has been unobtainable ever since. Either NBC or Rai Television Italiano yanked it from the light of day.

[farmfriend]

There is a technique through diet whereby eastern monks mummify themselves while still alive.

[farmfriend]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.

[Porterville]

Who's in the moood for jerky??!!

[Oztrich Boy]

Trekker finds Buddhist Lama mummy in a mountain hideaway in North India

He's dead, Jim

[blam]

I'm a big fan of Victor Mair, he has an excellent book titled, The Tarim Mummies, about Caucasian mummies found in China. Here are some more of his discoveries.

The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummy

[JesseHousman]

Could be one of Billy Goat Clinton's squeezes.

[adam_az]

"There is a technique through diet whereby eastern monks mummify themselves while still alive."

Yes! They eat some kind of tree which has a potent resin in the sap in the mountains of Japan. I've seen video of the mummies. Supposedly no one has done it for a long time.

Many monks, when reaching the end of their life, die through meditation and starvation... it's easier than dying of whatever else is going to kill them.

[adam_az]

bumpity bump

[Mr. Jeeves]

I remember the "Marco Polo" miniseries. Leonard Nimoy was in it, playing one of Kublai Khan's henchmen. It was a good series - they ought to put it on DVD.

[apillar]

BREAKING:

Sources indicate that, although dead for 500 years, Buddhist Monk Sangha Tenzin donated heavily to the Clinton/Gore 1996 Campaign and as recently as 2002 voted straight ticket democrat on an absentee ballot in a New Orleans precinct.

[TigersEye]

Does anyone else remember the miniseries? I'm glad I recorded it on the first VCR I ever owned; it has been unobtainable ever since. Either NBC or Rai Television Italiano yanked it from the light of day.

I remember that show. Was there something unPC about it to cause them to bury it? I don't remember anything like that but then I didn't know about PC back then.

They said he was being fed some kind of condensed nutrition with tree resin in it that was mummifying him alive. That was in China but there is a practice in Tibet of sucking algae/lichen covered rocks for sustenance by cave dwelling ascetics. The best known of these in Tibetan history is Milarepa. It is said that he turned green from the chlorophyll. He also looked like a skeleton and he scared the crap of the locals when he finally came down from his cave naked, green and nothing but skin and bones.

[Gangchen_gonpo]

I caught an hour long TV documentary on the investigation. The name escapes me, but I believe it has Tibet and/or Lama in the title. It was on one of the History or Discovery channels a couple of months ago. (maybe they hadn't watched the same show or they might not have claimed 'exclusivity.')

They looked at many aspects of what his life would have been like. Not sure that I would have made the same choices he did.

[SunkenCiv]

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