Russia’s most revered Buddhist monk

• Aik TC

  3 Feb 12, 20:32

   

  Russia’s most revered Buddhist monk

  by Ajay Kamalakaran, Special for RIR, January 31, 2012

  Buryatia, Russia -- The soft power of Buddhism from Buryatia spread far and wide across the Russian Empire. Dashi-Dorzho Itigelov, a Buryat monk who is revered by Buddhists in the country, was awarded the order of St Stanislas by Czar Nicholas II in 1917.

  Itigelov, who attended the tercentenary celebrations of the House of Romanov, opened the Gunzechoyney Datsan in St Petersburg, making it the first Buddhist temple in Europe.

  Itigelov was believed to have reached the supreme level of practicing Buddhism and it was in 1927 that he asked to be buried, while in a state of deep meditation. His body, which was exhumed in 2002, was almost intact.

  Itigelov was buried sitting in lotus posture in a pine box and kept in lama graveyard in Khukhe-Zurkhen in Buryatia. The monk wanted his body to be exhumed by other monks within several years. When the body was exhumed, scientists and pathologists said it was "in the condition of someone who had died 36 hours ago."

  The body was preserved without any signs of decay with the muscles, inner tissue, skin and soft joints intact. The body was transferred to Ivolginsky datsan, which is now the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in Russia.

   

• Dawnfirstlight

  3 Feb 12, 21:58

  Itigelov was buried sitting in lotus posture in a pine box and kept in lama graveyard in Khukhe-Zurkhen in Buryatia. The monk wanted his body to be exhumed by other monks within several years. When the body was exhumed, scientists and pathologists said it was "in the condition of someone who had died 36 hours ago."

  Amazing!

   

• Fcukpap

  3 Feb 12, 22:06

  such is the amazing fact of the science of preservation....A well-preserved ancient corpse, believed to date back to a 700-year-old mummy that which was discovered by chance - by road workers - preserved in excellent condition in eastern China.

   

   

• Dharmadhatu

  3 Feb 12, 23:03

  actually i hate to put a dampener on things... but I have read somewhere that it is possible for such things to happen to someone with deep concentration, not necessarily insights/realisations...thus it can happen for an non-buddhist too... in fact, for one with realisations, it could be that he can still die in an ordinary fashion... 

  i am just talking in general, not referring particularly to this case of the Russian monk, as he may still be an enlightened being. But such signs may not be 100% conclusive.

   

   

• Aik TC

  3 Feb 12, 23:23

   

  .....it can happen for a non-buddhist too. - Yes, such as the well know case of Saint Francis Xavier.