Speculative Fact #243: You Don't Do Buddha Like He Does Buddha.

When the Buddha died 
(c. 300 BCE), he told his followers to make no idols of him. But, he was sorely missed. So some monks, like Liuquan of "the six perfections" shown here inside of a golden statue, went the extra mile and mummified themselves to show solidarity with all living things, promising not to pass into Nirvana, the Buddhist state of perfect peace apart from the cycle of rebirths, until all beings were released from spiritual suffering. This process was not for the faint of heart.
   After two thousand days of extreme dieting, the monks then drank a poisonous tea, and finally had themselves sealed in a stone sarcophagus until they died.  Even after all that, mummification was not a shoe in.  At the very least, don't you think they deserve a story? 
   What might those last moments of life been like? What flashed before their eyes? Did the Buddha appear and show them the path to many realms? Did they hallucinate it all or is it the world that is a hologram? What would people find if they cracked open the golden statue? What might they release?

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