Siberian Buddhist Leader Baffles Scientists

[G_j]

Monk Baffles Scientists

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1639903,00.html

MOSCOW (AFP) -- A Siberian Buddhist leader whom followers claim looks
and feels just the same as when he died in 1927 is mystifying science.

Seated in the lotus pose in the ceremonial garments of a Buddhist lama, Dasha-Dorjo Itighelov is to undergo examination with modern techniques to find out what keeps him looking so perky.

"This is a phenomenon that science has no name for," said Viktor
Zyvagin, a leading expert in forensic medicine.

For the Buddhists of the Buryat republic near Siberia's Lake Baikal, the answer is simple. The lama is not dead, they believe, but in a state of nirvana.

He promised he would re-emerge among the living as soon as Buddhism is reborn in Russia, according to Yanjima Vasilyeva, director of the
Itighelov Museum, which was recently set up in Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat republic.
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[pacifictiger]

1. this reminds me of the story of the catholic

"incorruptibles" - various saints that have shown little sign of decomposition even centuries after their deaths.