text: Image copyright The Siberian Times/Morning Newspaper Image caption The monk was found wrapped in traditional Buddhist robes 
   
   A mummified monk found preserved in Mongolia last week has been baffling and astounding those who uncovered him. 
   
   Senior Buddhists say the monk, found sitting in the lotus position, is in a deep meditative trance and not dead. 
   
   Forensic examinations are under way on the remains, found wrapped in cattle skins in north-central Mongolia. 
   
   Scientists have yet to determine how the monk is so well preserved, though some think Mongolia's cold weather could be the reason. 
   
   But Dr Barry Kerzin, a physician to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, told the Siberian Times that the monk was in a rare state of meditation called "tukdam". 
   
   "If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha," Dr Kerzin said. 
   
   The monk was discovered after being stolen by a man hoping to sell him on the black market. 
   
   Mongolian police have arrested the culprit and the monk is now being guarded at the National Centre of Forensic Expertise. 
   
   Worship for eternity 
   
   Image copyright The Siberian Times/Morning Newspaper Image caption The monk was found as he was about to be sold on the black market 
   
   The identity of the monk is unclear, though there is speculation that he is the teacher of Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, who was also found mummified. 
   
   In 1927, Itigilov - from neighbouring Buryatia in the then Soviet Union - supposedly told his students he was going to die and that they should exhume his body in 30 years. 
   
   The lama sat in the lotus position, began meditating and died. 
   
   When he was dug up, legend has it that his body was still preserved. 
   
   Fearing interference by the Soviet authorities, his followers reburied him and he remained at rest until 2002 when he was again dug up to great fanfare and found still well preserved. 
   
   The lama was then placed in a Buddhist temple to be worshipped for eternity. ||||| The mummified remains, covered in cattle skin, were found on January 27 in the Songinokhairkhan province. Picture: Morning Newspaper 
   
   A mummified monk found in the lotus position in Mongolia is 'not dead' and is instead one stage away from becoming a real-life Buddha, it has been claimed. 
   
   Forensic examinations are under way on the amazing remains, which are believed to be around 200 years old, having been preserved in animal skin. But one expert has insisted the human relic is actually in 'very deep meditation' and in a rare and very special spiritual state known as 'tukdam'. 
   
   Over the last 50 years there are said to have been 40 such cases in India involving meditating Tibetan monks. 
   
   Dr Barry Kerzin, a famous Buddhist monk and a physician to the Dalai Lama, said: 'I had the privilege to take care of some meditators who were in a tukdam state. 
   
   'If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks - which rarely happens - his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes. Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a 'rainbow body'. This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha'. 
   
   He added: 'If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha. Reaching such a high spiritual level the meditator will also help others, and all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy'. 
   
   Initial speculation is that the mummy could be a teacher of Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov. 
   
   Born in 1852, Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was a Buryat Buddhist Lama of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, best known for the lifelike state of his body. 
   
   The 'meditating monk' and the house in Mongolia where it was hidden. Pictures: Morning Newspaper 
   
   Ganhugiyn Purevbata, who is the founder and professor of the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University, said: 'Lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolizes of the preaching Sutra. 
   
   'This is a sign that the Lama is not dead, but is in a very deep meditation according to the ancient tradition of Buddhist lamas'. 
   
   The mummified remains, which were covered in cattle skin, were found on January 27 in the Songinokhairkhan province of Mongolia. 
   
   However, there is more to the story and now police have revealed that the monk had been stolen from another part of the country and was about to be sold off. 
   
   An unnamed official said that it was taken from a cave in the Kobdsk region by a man who then hid it in his own home in Ulaanbaatar. 
   
   He had then been planning to sell it on the black market at a 'very high price', with local media claiming he wanted to take it over the Mongolian border. Police uncovered the plot and quickly arrested a 45-year-old, named only as Enhtor. 
   
   According to Article 18 of the Criminal Code of Mongolia smuggling items of cultural heritage are punishable with either a fine of up to 3million roubles ($43,000) or between five and 12 years in prison. The monk is now being guarded at the National Centre of Forensic Expertise at Ulaanbaatar. ||||| 
   
   Is this the body of famed Buddhist monk Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov? (Courtesy of Morning Newspaper/The Siberian Times) 
   
   Rare is the day that Mongolia wades into the international realm. These days, despite the nation’s sweeping size, its population has shriveled to less than 3 million. But every now and then, something remarkable rises out of its storied past — like a Genghis Khan find — to grab attention that has long eluded it. 
   
   Today is one of those days. 
   
   Mongolian scientists, according to reports in the Siberian Times and local Mongol media, are investigating the remains of what researchers describe as the 200-year-old corpse of a monk who was found frozen — yes — in lotus position. The monk “is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolizes the preaching Sutra,” Ganhugiyn Purevbata, a professor at the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University, told the Siberian Times. 
   
   None of this has been verified independently or described in a peer-reviewed publication. 
   
   Though incredible, there is an undeniably rich history of scientists discovering so-called “accidental mummies” in areas of extreme chill like Mongolia. Last year, a 9,000-year-old mummified bison turned up in Siberia. Then some Russian archaeologists dug up a trove of accidental mummies masked under copper plates. Even forces as powerful as decomposition will sometimes stall, it appears, in the face of fierce chills. 
   
   Perhaps even for a monk in lotus position. 
   
   The Siberian Times, which also originally broke a story about a mysterious Siberian crater, reported the monk was found on Jan. 27 in north central Mongolia. He was covered in cattle skin. “The mummified body sits in a lotus position, as if still meditating,” Mongolia’s Morning Newspaper said. “Experts that only had time to carry basic visual test say they believe the body can be about 200 years old.” At the time of that report, which hit one week ago, Mongolia’s Morning Newspaper confessed it didn’t know many of the details of the mummified monk’s origins. 
   
   But those details now appear to be filling in — along with a dose of intrigue, geopolitics and mystery. There’s strong suspicion the body belongs to famed Mongol Buddhist monk Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, who inhabited the rugged Siberian terrain near the border with Mongolia. Born in 1852, his myth was solidified with his death in 1927, the New York Times reported in 2002. 
   
   “Then 75 and retired, [he] instructed those gathered around him to ‘visit and look at my body’ in 30 years,” Times reporter Steven Lee Myers wrote. “He crossed his legs into the lotus position, began to mediate and, chanting a prayer for the dead, died.” The intervening decades were not kind to the Buddhists inhabiting that area of Russia. Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union enacted severe crackdowns, executing hundreds of Buddhists and laying waste to their temples. So when the Itigilov’s students came upon his cemetery 30 years after his death as he requested, it wasn’t clear what they would find. 
   
   “What they found, as the story goes, was Itigilov’s body, still in the lotus position, still perfectly intact, having defied nature’s imperative to decay,” the Times said. 
   
   Not knowing what else to do, they fitted the monk’s body back into his crypt. And there it remained for the next 75 years. Then on Sept. 11, 2002, before a small gathering of dozen witnesses, it was pulled free once more. The body was still somehow preserved, which spawned much international speculation. Was it the monk’s genes? Was it his burial process? Was he embalmed? Salt? Soil? Faith? What was it? 
   
   “To me, it is the greatest miracle in life,” spiritual leader Hambo Lama Ayusheyev said. “It turns out there are things on which time has no power.” 
   
   Now, 13 years later, it appears as though the saga of the mummified monk had a final twist. Today’s monk was discovered on a snow-covered estate in Mongolia’s Songinokhairkhan province, but local authorities believe the monk didn’t die there. “Police have revealed that the monk had been stolen from another part of the country and was about to be sold off,” the Siberian Times reported. “He had then been planning to sell it on the black market at a ‘very high price,’ with local [Mongol] media claiming he wanted to take it over the Mongolian border. Police uncovered the plot and quickly arrested a 45-year-old, named only as Enhtor.” 
   
   Though local officials suspect that this corpse was, in fact, the remains of Itigilov, many elements of the story remain unclear. How was the monk’s corpse stolen? Who is this mysterious Enhtor? There’s a black market for frozen bodies? 
   
   Whatever this story’s resolution — whether the body is the monk’s corpse, or another monk’s corpse — the body is now reportedly under guard at Ulaanbaatar’s National Center of Forensic Expertise. 
   
   “If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha,” Barry Kerzin, an aide to the Dalai Lama, told the Siberian Times. “Reaching such a high spiritual level, the meditator will also help others. And all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy.”
target: – The 200-year-old Buddhist monk found still seated in the lotus position is not dead, but is rather in a rare spiritual state known as tukdam, Buddhism experts suggest. Dr. Barry Kerzin, a famous fellow monk who is also a physician to the Dalai Lama, tells the Siberian Times that monks in this state go into "very deep meditation" and, if they can stay in such a state for more than three weeks, their bodies shrink until all that remains are "hair, nails, and clothes," he says. "Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a 'rainbow body.' This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha," and someone who remains in the state can even become a Buddha, he says. He adds that over the past five decades, there have been 40 such cases in India. Ganhugiyn Purevbata, founder and professor at the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University, agrees: The monk "is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolizes of the preaching Sutra," he says. "This is a sign that the Lama is not dead, but is in a very deep meditation according to the ancient tradition of Buddhist lamas." But scientists have a different take, theorizing that the cold weather in Mongolia, where the monk was found, helped preserve him, the BBC reports. And the Washington Post notes that such "accidental mummies" have been discovered in freezing climates before, like a 9,000-year-old mummified bison in Siberia. Meanwhile, there is drama of a less spiritual type unfolding: Police say a man stole the monk from a cave in another part of the country and was planning to sell him on the black market, but police learned of the plot, recovered the monk, and arrested the man for smuggling. (Click for more on the spiritual practice of self-mummification.)