Trekker finds Lama Mummy in a mountain

This is a rare photograph of a Tibetan monk called Sangha Tenzin which a nomadic biker, Anuj Singh, found mummified inside a tomb at Ghuen Village in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.

Professor Victor Mayer, who studies mummies, says it is at least 500 years old. "He died around the time that Columbus discovered America." Anuj had taken Professor Mair and his team from the University of Pennsylvania, to see the mummy when they were in India for a research.

Apparently, the monk had given up his life while meditating in the position he was found mummified.

Ghuen villagers had known about the mummy since 1975, when an earthquake struck the region and brought down a part of the tomb. Ghuen falls in a forward area close to the China border. It is a restricted area under the control of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. Therefore, few people outside Ghuen ever found out about the mummy.

In 2001, when Anuj came to Ghuen and made friends with the policemen, they took him to meet "Shah Rukh Khan", the name they had given to the monk.

The mummy is remarkably well preserved for its age. Its skin is unbroken. There is hair on the head as well. Mair says it is partly to do with the extreme cold and dry air of the region, and partly to do with the meditation rituals that ancient high monks practiced to get rid of a public menace. "Slow starvation in the last few months of his life had reduced the body fat and shrunk parts of the body that would have been liable for putrefaction."

he mummy also did not collapse and disintegrate because of a jute restrainer, which runs around the mummy’s neck and passes between the thighs.

here is greater significance of the restrainer. It points to a rare and esoteric practice. Mair says, "It kept the monk in an upright position and enabled him to focus on his meditation. If he relaxed, the restrainer knot would have tightened around his neck, cutting off oxygen supply and suffocating him… It was essentially to keep him in good posture."

Very little is available in Buddhist texts in India that describes the practice. Only one manuscript in the library of Tabo monastery has a reference to it.

From his understanding of Buddhist rituals and practices, Mair also say this kind of a practice is rare. "It is only known among certain sects in Japan and Tibet. They tended to be highly esoteric and lived in the mountains. The practice itself is part of the Dzogchen tradition with the Nyingma (sect)."

Ghuen, incidentally, is about 50 km from the Tabo monastery, which is the oldest surviving Buddhist establishment in the trans-Himalayas, dating back a 1000 years. Ghuen also straddles an ancient trading route over which spices, wool, salt, precious stones and sugar moved between India and Tibet. Monks and high lamas frequented this route.

Local legends say, about 600 years ago when Ghuen was troubled by scorpions, the monk Sangha Tenzin, squatted to meditate in the prescribed manner, after asking his disciples to entomb him. It is believed when his soul left the body, a rainbow appeared across the sky and scorpions mysteriously vanished from the village.