The Mummy Monk of Wat Kunaram on Ko Samui
This is some information about the Mummy Monk and a photograph of him.
Notice he is wearing sunglasses.
The mummified Monk can be visited at Wat Khunaram, on the street from Lamai Beach to Nathon, about
eight kilometres south of Lamai Beach. The mummy is the body of a formerly rich Samuian who, in advanced
age, rejected all worldly possessions to devote his attention to his spiritual well-being. He died in 1973
at the age of 79.
As legend has it, a few days before his death, he instructed his followers to build a coffin for him. Legend
further insists that the corpse of the monk, who had died exactly on the date he allegedly had himself predicted,
simply "refused" to decay. Therefore a glass coffin was built in which the corpse is exhibited to this day.
To Thais the alleged fact that the monk's body "refused" to decay without human interference counts as a Buddhist
miracle - or rather as proof that by Buddhist enlightenment achieved through meditation, every law of nature, or
rather, every law of the physical world, can be overcome (Buddhist perceptions of the world are considered laws
of nature by Buddhist).
Last updated 23.8.2005
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