How an ascetic tried to prepare his body
In Japan, some Buddhist ascetics pursued sokushinbutsu, a demanding practice intended to become a preserved body through religious discipline. The preparation was not simply a diet of pine needles. Accounts describe monks gradually restricting themselves to foods from the mountains—such as nuts, roots and bark—in an effort to reduce body fat before death.
Some accounts also describe consuming sap from the lacquer tree, the source of the coating called urushi. The sap is toxic and can cause severe illness. It was believed to help make a body less vulnerable to decay, but poisoning or starvation could not guarantee preservation. The process was dangerous, and many who attempted it did not become preserved relics.
From living discipline to sacred relic
The bodily preparation was part of a religious undertaking, not a method of preserving a corpse for its own sake. Practitioners sought spiritual attainment through extreme self-denial. In some traditions, the final stage involved entering a confined space for meditation and remaining there until death; details of the practice varied, and surviving accounts do not establish one uniform procedure.
A body that remained preserved could later be treated as a revered presence at a temple. That status gave the practice meaning for followers: the ascetic’s body was understood as evidence of extraordinary devotion and spiritual achievement. The striking consequence is that a failed attempt meant death without the hoped-for relic, while success transformed a private act of discipline into an object of communal reverence.
