Real wax
(Apologies for bad picture quality. The Venerable Ajahn Mun in a glass box: Chiang Mai, Thailand)
A very honest tuk-tuk* driver called Nok (meaning bird – just like the maid) admitted he had no idea about this monk – he didn’t even recall ever hearing about him at all. He was taking us on a tour of some of the attractive temples in Chiang Mai, of which there are plenty. When we asked him some questions about the temples, he couldn’t answer many of our questions, but acknowledged that he’d lived in the city all his life, therefore the temples were just part of his home town and he didn’t know a lot about them.
We couldn’t decide if this gentleman in the box was a real person, preserved for posterity, or a wax effigy, present to commemorate his life and achievements. There was another similar arrangement in the temple next door and I’m sure that this person had been preserved, simply due to the detail of his body. Most people we asked said they didn’t know if they were preserved, but they imagined that they would be. It seems a bit opposed to the values of Buddhism to preserve something that has expired, but it’s a more common practice in other religions. It was an odd feeling either way because they appeared to be so real and so alive, the atmosphere inside these temples was rather strange, probably due to their presence.
* A tuk-tuk being a little truck-like taxi for two, appearing everywhere like a glorified rickshaw.
