Ganhugiyn Purevbata, who taught at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University’s Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art, said that the position is meant to show that the person is not dead but is instead in deep meditation.
But the body inside the statue was definitely dead, no matter how it was posed. The good professor was likely speaking metaphorically and not saying that the body inside the statue was still alive.
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It is speculated that the mummy was on display and worshiped in a Buddhist temple in China for the first 200 years. But researchers are still waiting for the results of a DNA test so they can find out where exactly in China did the mummy come from. The statue was even sent to the National Museum of Natural History in Budapest. As part of an international tour, it was then moved to Luxembourg.
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It is thought that the mummified monk of Liuquan is the only one that has ever been found inside a Buddha statue. However, another mummified monk in a lotus position, thought to be around 200 years old, was found in a house in a remote province of Mongolia. But this mummy wasn’t encased within a Buddha statue and was instead wrapped in cattle skin.
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