Thupten Rinpoche, a Tibetan monk in New Zealand, died in May but reportedly lay for nearly three weeks without discernible deterioration, no sign of rigor mortis, and no smell.
Rinpoche had stomach cancer and was certified medically dead on May 24 by a local doctor who said that Rinpoche’s heart had stopped beating and he was no longer breathing. The body was left in a bed under a shroud at the Dhargyey Buddhist Center with relatively low temperature and dry conditions.
According to the local Buddhist community, Rinpoche had entered a state of “death meditation” or tukdam. Rinpoche’s body was later cremated.
“I don’t think anyone else has done it in New Zealand. It’s only been done once in our community before, when our founder died,” said Peter Small, director of Dhargyey Buddhist Center, according to the Otago Daily Times (ODT).
“It’s an exceptionally long time for a lama to stay in death meditation,” Small added.
TVNZ filmed the lama’s body 15 days after death, showing reporter John Hudson the body. Hudson said the room temperature was 13 degrees Celsius, and that there was no smell or other signs of decay.
Local funeral director Michael Hope told TVNZ that when someone dies, decay can happen quite quickly with obvious indicators.
“There might be some distension and swelling, probably some odor would be an expectation,” he said. “Some of the facial features might have changed a little bit; the eyes might have darkened.”
Hope mentioned occasionally seeing corpses long after death with little or no sign of decay, explaining that this can happen due to a combination of factors.
Pathologist Dr. John Rutherford told TVNZ that a corpse can be well-preserved in relatively cool ambient temperatures with dry humidity, and when the intestine is fairly free of organisms that would otherwise spread through the body and cause putrefaction.
Dr. Rutherford said this is possible due to fasting or a wasting disease, adding that after death, rigor mortis takes around 12 hours to develop, is fixed for around 12 hours, and then fades off over the following 12 hours.
“There may well be a rational and reasonable physical explanation for it all without having to invoke some unusual, mysterious, poorly understood psychic phenomenon.”
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