A Thai monk has chopped off his own head as an offering to Buddha in the hope he may be reincarnated as a ‘higher spiritual being’.
Daily Mail reports that the Monk identifies as Thammakorn Wangpreecha, 68, had been planning the bizarre ritual sacrifice for more than five years.
The report has it that the monk believed that making the offering to the deity would bring him good luck in the afterlife, a belief known in Buddhism as ‘making merit’.
He was found dead on April 15 at the Wat Phu Hin temple in Nong Bua Lamphu province, in north-eastern Thailand.
His nephew Booncherd Boonrod is said to have discovered the body, and said that a slab of marble had also been inscribed with his uncle’s plans.
The monk allegedly used a makeshift guillotine next to a Buddhist God statue so that the religious figure would appear to be holding his head after it had been cut off.
He had served the temple for 11 years, had allegedly previously informed the other priests that he would be leaving the monkhood but did not tell them about the guillotine.
Police took the body from the temple to the hospital so medics could perform a post-mortem examination and record the cause of death before returning it to the family for funeral rites.
Following the monk’s death, more than 300 local devotees arrived at the temple to prepare his body for a rite.
The monk’s body was laid inside a coffin while his head placed in a jar before his followers and family members carried his remains to the forest where it was burned.
