An unspeakably and extremely painful practice carried out in Northern Japan by Buddhist monks also know as Sokushinbutsu was self mummification. They themselves caused their deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. This practice was prevalent exclusively in northern Japan. According to the Japanese people and the historians hundreds of monks attempted self mummification but only around 24 such mummies are discovered till date.
The technique was developed by a man called kuukai. These monks wanted to keep their body unharmed after death so as it may not traumatize the living. As a procedure to achieve self mummification the monks ate a special diet consisting of nuts and seeds only for around 1000 days and performed rigorous physical activities to deprive their bodies of fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another 1000 days and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the Urshi tree.
This caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids, and most importantly, it made the body too poisonous to be eaten by maggots. The last step was to lock himself in a stone tomb just of his body size. There used to be an air pipe for air supply and they used to communicate with the world with a bell. Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive.
When the bell stopped ringing, it indicated the death. The tube was removed and the tomb was sealed. After the tomb was sealed, the other monks in the temple would wait another 1,000 days after which they used to open the tomb to see if the mummification was successful.
The successful monks were kept in temples and seen as Buddha. Via Link
