will be no means of maintaining oneself, and one has to give up life
　　　　  without reason. A proper consideration shows that such a practice is
　　　　  not right. There are some who do not eat ghee or cream, do not wear
　　　　  leather boots, and do not put on any silk or cotton. All these are
　　　　  in the same category as above."(85) Here is the Shouleng'yan jing:
　　　　  "If bhiksus do not wear garments made of silk from the East, boots
　　　　  of leather and furs and refrain from consuming milk, cream and
　　　　  butter, they will really be liberated from the worldly; after paying
　　　　  their former debts, they will not transmigrate in the three realms
　　　　  of existence."(86) Yijing says that monks may eat the three pure
　　　　  kinds of meat.(87) The Buddha, speaking in the Shouleng'yan jing,
　　　　  says, "You should know that those who eat meat, although their minds
　　　　  may be open and realize a semblance of samadhi, are but great
　　　　  raksasas who, after this life will sink back into the bitter ocean
　　　　  of samsara and cannot be my disciples."(88) So, the section on
　　　　  morality in the Shouleng'yan jing seems to have been composed in
　　　　  part as a response to definitive opinions expressed on the Vinaya by
　　　　  Yijing, which occurred in a text available to the forgers.
　　　　  On the basis of the close textual relationship between the two texts
　　　　  I conclude that the lines relating to burning the body were most
　　　　  likely placed in the text of the Shouleng'yan jing in direct
　　　　  response to Yijing's attack on the practice. The vindication of shao
　　　　  shen by the Buddha himself was an unanswerable argument that would
　　　　  have effectively topped any of Yijing's objections.
　　　　  USE OF THE TEXTS BY AUTOCREMATORS
　　　　  The fact that the Fanwang jing and Shouleng'yan jing were directly
　　　　  referred to by self-immolators themselves helps us to understand why
　　　　  they were originally composed. The Song Tiantai master Zhili, whom
　　　　  we have already encountered in the context of praying for rain, used
　　　　  the two passages to justify his own proposed autocremation. In 1017
　　　　  he vowed to burn himself alive and to attain rebirth in the Pure
　　　　  Land on completion of the fahua repentance.(89) He did not do so,
　　　　  being eventually persuaded to "remain in the world" by a series of
　　　　  letters written to him by the well-known Song literatus Yang Yi
　　　　  (974-1020), who also memorialized the emperor, asking him to
　　　　  persuade Zhili to change his mind.(90) Yang Yi's letters and Zhili's
　　　　  replies are preserved in Siming zunzhe jiaoxing lu.(91) In the reply
　　　　  to Yang Yi's first letter Zhili explicitly cites both the Fanwang