ABSTRACT

The Chinese and Tibetan traditions value biography as a primary historiographical and literary genre. This volume analyses biographies as texts, taking seriously the literary turn in historical and religious studies and applying some of its insights to an understudied but central corpus of material in Chinese and Tibetan religion.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|17 pages

Jiao Xian's Three Lives

chapter 2|19 pages

The Virtue of Conformity

chapter 3|25 pages

Everyday Miracles

chapter 4|58 pages

Representing Wonch'Uk

chapter 5|16 pages

The Mirror of Life

chapter 6|30 pages

Peng Shaosheng or Peng Jiqing?

chapter 8|32 pages

Biography by Instalment