Temple offerings

Dead people are better off six feet under as they could pose trouble for the living.

When a 65-year-old Austrian man drove through the Gunja border crossing between Bosnia and Croatia in late November, he presented travel documents for himself and his passenger in the back seat.

Checkpoint police, however, got suspicious of his passenger who was unconscious and unresponsive. They called a coroner who found the 83-year-old woman dead.

The driver admitted he was bringing the deceased to Austria to avoid the paperwork related to the transport of the body. He was arrested for attempted smuggling of a corpse.

Meanwhile, an abbot at a Thai temple had a unique way of training monks.

The sprawling Thiphaksong Pa Sangnayatham temple in the serene forest of Pho Thale in Phichit province, central Thailand features a fenced pond with 600 crocodiles. It is used as a wishing well for visitors.

There are several bamboo meditation pavilions that not only attract Buddhist devotees but also police because there is a coffin in each hut.

On 22 November, police raided the temple and found 73 concealed corpses, including 41 buried bodies, there.

Monks at the temple explained that the discovered corpses belonged to individuals who had pledged their bodies to the temple before their deaths, most of whom were either disciples of the temple or family members of the disciples, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports.

On 26 November, police raided another temple in the Bang Mun Nak district and found 32 corpses.

Phra Ajahn Sai Fon Pandito, the abbot of the two raided temples, defended the keeping of the bodies that were used as a form of “death awareness” training in meditation to help monks confront and overcome their fear of death, thus deepening their spiritual practice, according to SCMP.

Phra Ajahn said the corpses were intended for enhancing the monks’ mental resilience and discipline.

Police seized the corpses, ordered the temples to cease all related activities, and initiated investigations into the identities and origins of the bodies, SCMP reports.