Daihizan Kannonji Temple and Bukkai Shonin

Daihizan Kannonji Temple in Murakami holds the preserved remains of Bukkai Shonin, Japan's last known sokushinbutsu, a monk who achieved self-mummification as an act of spiritual devotion. Born in 1828, Bukkai spent years preparing, following a strict diet of wild plants and lacquer tea to minimize body tissue prone to decay, with the lacquer slowly coating internal organs as a preservative. He entered a sealed stone casket in 1903, asking to be exhumed three years later. A law passed in 1868 prohibiting the disinterment of corpses prevented this, and his body remained underground until researchers exhumed it in 1961. His mummified body and the casket are on view at the temple.