In a quiet room of a European museum, surrounded by relics from ancient temples and faraway dynasties, sits a modest statue. It is not particularly grand nor towering in size—only about three feet tall, cast in a bronze-gilded sheen, worn smooth by time. The monk’s eyes are closed in eternal meditation, his face a mask of sublime calm. Robes flow over his body in elegant folds, carved with reverence. Visitors pᴀss it with reverence or indifference—until they learn what lies within.
It was 2014 when researchers in the Netherlands decided to conduct a routine CT scan on the statue. Initially believed to be a simple representation of a Buddhist monk, the statue was undergoing testing as part of a restoration and preservation project. What the scan revealed left scientists, historians, and spiritual leaders around the world stunned. Inside the statue, perfectly preserved in a meditative pose, was a real human skeleton. The monk was not merely represented—he was entombed within, locked forever in a posture of transcendence.
The body inside belonged to a Chinese Buddhist master known as Liuquan, a member of the Chinese Meditation School, believed to have lived nearly a thousand years ago during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). Historians had long heard legends of self-mummification—an ancient and extreme practice in which monks voluntarily entered death through fasting, meditation, and ritual in order to preserve the body and achieve a higher spiritual state. This discovery was the first tangible, physical evidence supporting those stories. And it sent ripples across the world.
Self-mummification is one of the most haunting and mysterious practices in religious history. Practiced primarily in Japan and parts of China, it was believed by some sects of Mahayana Buddhism to be the highest form of ascetic devotion. The monk would begin by adhering to a rigid diet known as mokujikigyō—eating only seeds, nuts, roots, and bark to slowly eliminate all fat and moisture from the body. This process could last for years. Eventually, the monk would drink a toxic tea made from the sap of the urushi tree—used in lacquerware—which was not only poisonous to insects but also acted as a kind of preservative from within.
After this process of gradual self-starvation and purification, the monk would be sealed alive in a tomb barely larger than his body. He would sit in the lotus position and meditate, holding a small bell. Each day, he would ring the bell to signal he was still alive. When the bell stopped, the tomb would be sealed completely. Centuries later, some tombs were opened to find monks whose bodies had not decayed—mummified not by chemicals or weather, but by sheer will, discipline, and belief.
Liuquan was likely one of these monks. But unlike many others, his body was not left in an underground crypt—it was encased in a statue, venerated as both a relic and a work of art. At some point during the centuries following his death, the line between the spiritual figure and the literal body blurred. He became both symbol and presence, devotion and artifact. The statue, with its golden exterior and silent soul, was a living mystery hiding in plain sight.
What does it mean for a person to sit in stillness for a millennium?
Inside that statue, Liuquan’s bones rest where he placed them by choice. His arms remain folded in meditation, his spine upright, his ribcage clearly visible in the scan—each vertebra a testament to the last breath of a man who believed death was not an end, but a transformation. Within the hollowed torso, researchers found scraps of paper inscribed with ancient Chinese characters—sutras, mantras, and offerings. Some suggest these texts were part of the entombment ritual, while others believe they were written by the monk himself in his final days.
CT scans and endoscopic cameras revealed further secrets. The internal organs had been removed, possibly during or after death, a practice consistent with ritual preservation. Yet unlike Egyptian mummies, Liuquan was not wrapped, embalmed, or treated with oils. His preservation came from within—a triumph of mind over body, or perhaps devotion over decay.
This fusion of science and spirituality—of medical imaging and ancient asceticism—poses difficult questions. Is Liuquan a body or a statue? A relic or a person? Should he be returned to a temple, or remain in a museum? In some traditions, mummified monks are not considered ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at all. They are believed to be in a deep meditative state, continuing to radiate spiritual energy, offering guidance in silence. For those who believe, Liuquan is still listening.
The emotional power of this discovery lies not only in its strangeness, but in its humanity. We see in Liuquan not a myth or a horror, but a man who sought eternity through stillness. A man who gave his final years to prayer and discipline, not out of fear of death, but in pursuit of something beyond it.
For the archaeologist, this statue is a time capsule. For the historian, a key to forgotten rituals. For the believer, a sacred vessel. And for the modern mind, trained to look for answers in scans and bone density charts, Liuquan offers something more elusive: wonder.
In a world obsessed with movement, here is a man who chose to stop. In a culture of noise, here is a silence that spans centuries. He did not build an empire, write a treatise, or lead a war. He simply sat. And by doing so, he crossed the boundary between life and death, legend and flesh.
The gilded statue may never speak, but the CT scan does. It speaks in vertebrae, in parchment, in the curvature of bones that once carried breath. It tells us that the past is not gone—it is seated right in front of us, legs folded, eyes closed, waiting to be seen.
And perhaps, if we sit long enough, if we listen closely enough, we might hear what Liuquan has known all along: that eternity is not a place—but a posture.
