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. 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. Senior Buddhists say the monk, found sitting in the lotus position, is in a deep meditative trance and not dead. The mummified remains, which were covered in cattle skin, were found on January 27 in the Songinokhairkhan province of Mongolia. 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. 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. 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. 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. “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. The monk was discovered after being stolen by a man hoping to sell him on the black market. 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. 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". Reaching such a high spiritual level the meditator will also help others, and all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy'.
– 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.)