Mummified Monk Still Alive?

A Buddhist expert has claimed that a mummified monk found in Mongolia is still alive, in a deep state of meditation called "tudkam." The remains are about 200 years old and show a remarkable degree of preservation, though from all outward appearances the body is completely mummified and shows no signs of life.

According to the same expert, Dr. Barry Kerzin, the tudkam state is a predecessor to the attainment of the "rainbow body," a transformation in which the body is converted in some fashion to "pure light." I have heard reports of lamas entering tudkam at the moment of physical death, and apparently their bodies do not seem to cool normally even after more than a week. But of course that's not nearly as long as two centuries.

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’.

It seems to me that observation of the mummy makes for a perfect test of the "rainbow body" effect. If the monk is indeed still alive in some sense but on the way to accomplishing the transformation, perhaps we could capture it on a security camera or something. A few of these transformations allegedly took place in the last century, listed here. But as far as I know it has never been directly observed.

It can't be a matter-to-energy conversion because the mass of the body would yield energy far in excess of that produced by even hundreds of nuclear explosions and nothing of that magnitude has ever been reported. But if it's real, what else could it be? Suffice it to say that I would love to be able to study a real case and make some sort of scientific determination.