Acknowledgments Abbreviations and Conventions Introduction Chapter 1: ¿Mounting the Smoke with Glittering Colors¿: Self-Immolation in Early Medieval China Chapter 2: The Lotus Stra, Auto-Cremation, and the Indestructible Tongue Chapter 3: Sagha and the State: The Power(s) of Self-Immolation Chapter 4: Is Self-Immolation a ¿Good Practice¿?: Yongming Yanshou on Relinquishing the Body Chapter 5: Local Heroes in a Fragmenting Empire: Self-Immolation in the Late Tang and Five Dynasties Chapter 6: One Thousand Years of Self-Immolation Conclusion Appendix 1: Major Collections of Biographies of Self-Immolators Appendix 2: Critical Evaluations of Huijiao, Daoxuan, and Zanning Notes Bibliography Index