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.

Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1. Jiao Xian's Three Lives, 2. The Virtue of Conformity, 3. Everyday Miracles, 4. Representing Wonch'Uk, 5. The Mirror of Life, 6. Peng Shaosheng or Peng Jiqing?, 7. The Epic and Nationalism in Tibet, 8. Biography by Instalment, 9. The Factor of Fate in Religious Biography, Contributors, Chinese Character Glossary, Tibetan Glossary, Bibliography, Index