Monks and Magicians: Religious Biographies in Asia

The introduction explains that every Asian religious tradition has preserved stories about distinguished religious persons, including monks, nuns, kings, and pious lay devotees. These accounts combine miracles, moral teachings, philosophical arguments, devotional memory, humorous details, and institutional concerns. The editors emphasize that such texts should be studied as religious and cultural documents, not only as sources for historical reconstruction. The volume includes André Couture’s survey of French scholarship on ancient Indian Buddhist hagiography; Phyllis Granoff’s studies on Jain biographies of Nāgārjuna and the biographies of Ārya Khapaṭācārya; Eva K. Dargyay’s essay on Srong-btsan Sgam-po as bodhisattva and king; Koichi Shinohara’s study of Chinese Buddhist biographies through stūpa inscriptions and miracle stories; Yun-hua Jan’s study of Tsung-mi through biography and autobiography; and Albert Welter’s contextual study of Chinese Buddhist biographies through Yung-ming Yen-shou.