Amsterdam, Feb 23 (IANS) A monk’s 1,000-year-old mummified body was discovered inside a Chinese Buddha statue after it was taken to hospital for a CT scan in the Netherlands, a media report said Monday.
The body belonged to master Liuquan, a monk who lived around the year 1100 and was a member of a Chinese meditation school, British daily Mirror reported.
Examining the mummy, a gastroenterologist found “all kinds of rotten material, paper scraps that were printed with ancient Chinese characters” where once had been organs, a hospital spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The sculpture is on display at an exhibition at Drents Museum in the Netherlands.
The finding follows the discovery of a 200-year-old mummified monk in Mongolia. Some argue that the monk is “not dead” but just in a deep meditative state.