overwhelmingly positive connotations. Against this background, our
　　　　  passage, which at first glance looks quite bizarre, begins to look a
　　　　  lot less strange. My contention is that when the Shouleng'yan jing
　　　　  speaks of burning incense on the body, it is to the indigenous
　　　　  Chinese practice of moxibustion that it refers, albeit perhaps
　　　　  indirectly.
　　　　  Even if we discount this suggestion, it is beyond dispute that
　　　　  ordination burning as it has been known for the last hundred years
　　　　  or so draws more or less explicitly on a well-established Chinese
　　　　  medical technique. That Buddhism and healing could be linked in such
　　　　  a manner is hardly a great revelation, but it leads me to wonder
　　　　  what deeper symbolic links might exist between burning and healing.
　　　　  For example, the bodhisattva who burned himself in the Lotus Sutra,
　　　　  Bhaisajyagururaja, was known in China as Yaowang (Medicine King) and
　　　　  as such was the center of a cult of significant proportions.(38)
　　　　  This kind of symbolic link might prove to be a profitable line of
　　　　  inquiry for further investigation of the practice.
　　　　  THE FANWANG JING AND SHOULENG'YAN JING AND THE HISTORY OF BURNING AT
　　　　  ORDINATION
　　　　  De Groot sees a clear connection between the sixteenth minor precept
　　　　  of the Fanwang jing and the act of burning at ordination, and
　　　　  Chinese monks and nuns whom I questioned also felt that there was a
　　　　  connection between the two. None of my informants was able to point
　　　　  me toward a text that actually made that connection explicit. There
　　　　  is such a text, but compared to the Fanwang jing, it is both fairly
　　　　  obscure and fairly late. The eighteenth-century monastic gazetteer
　　　　  Wulin dazhaoqing lusi zhi (Gazetteer of the Great Zhaoqing Vinaya
　　　　  Monastery in Wulin) contains an entry on receiving the bodhisattva
　　　　  precepts that reads:
　　　　  Those who wish to receive the great bodhisattva precepts first give
　　　　  rise to a great aspiration. The burning of the crown of the head is
　　　　  taken as the vow. After the burning one receives the precepts. The
　　　　  Fanwang jing says, "Bodhisattvas who are new to study come a hundred
　　　　  or a thousand li in search of the scriptures and regulations of the
　　　　  Mahayana. In accordance with the dharma one should explain to them
　　　　  all the ascetic practices, such as setting fire to the body, setting
　　　　  fire to the arm, or setting fire to the finger. If one does not set
　　　　  fire to the body, the arm or the finger as an offering to the
　　　　  Buddhas, one is not a renunciant Bodhisattva." On this precedent,