for rain for three days. When it did not rain he resolved to burn
　　　　  himself. Then he obtained a result. The Prefect Su thought this was
　　　　  extraordinary and erected a stele recording the event."(61)
　　　　  Other accounts of Buddhists who vowed to burn themselves to bring
　　　　  rain can be found in Yudi jisheng.(62) A Ming dynasty monk who
　　　　  followed through on the vow and did burn himself can be found in Xin
　　　　  xu gaoseng zhuan si ji (Four Collections of New Continued
　　　　  Biographies of Eminent Monks).(63) Buddhist scriptures say many
　　　　  interesting things, but even apocryphal sutras do not permit monks
　　　　  to burn their bodies in order to bring rain. So it is interesting to
　　　　  see this intersection between indigenous and Buddhist practice,
　　　　  legitimated in the acts of eminent monks. These monks themselves had
　　　　  two sources of legitimation: on the one hand they did what any
　　　　  self-respecting emperor or official would have done; on the other
　　　　  they were aware that "burning the body as an offering to the Buddha"
　　　　  (explicitly marked in the text here) was a legitimate Buddhist act.
　　　　  THE FANWANG JING AND SHOULENG'YAN JING AS TEXTUAL JUSTIFICATION FOR
　　　　  BURNING THE BODY BY MONKS AND NUNS
　　　　  CREATION AND FUNCTION OF THE SHOULENG'YAN JING
　　　　  My thesis is that the function of these few lines from the two texts
　　　　  was to provide textual justification for burning practices by
　　　　  members of the Chinese samgha, but what further evidence can be
　　　　  found to indicate that the texts were understood in this way? The
　　　　  Fahua jing san da bu buzhu (Supplementary notes on the Three Great
　　　　  Divisions of the Lotus Sutra) was compiled by the Song Tiantai monk
　　　　  Congyi (1042-91) as a supplement to the three commentaries on the
　　　　  Lotus by Zhiyi (538-97). The autocremation of the Bodhisattva
　　　　  Bhaisajyagururaja in the Lotus prompts the following exegesis:
　　　　  Some people say that the Vinaya prohibits the burning of the body to
　　　　  bring deliverance and the burning of the finger to bring good
　　　　  fortune.(64) But this is to confuse the greater and lesser
　　　　  [vehicles]. Nanshan (Daoxuan 596-4667), citing the four-part and
　　　　  five-part [Vinayas], says that suicide is sthulatyaya (a major
　　　　  transgression). Furthermore he cites the ten-recension [Vinaya] to
　　　　  say that inflicting injury on the self or mutilating the body, which
　　　　  includes cutting off the fingers, are all transgressions. Therefore
　　　　  suicide to attain deliverance is the transgression of murder. This
　　　　  is broadly what the text of the Hinayana Vinayas state.