The two essays in this volume explore how monks in medieval India and China wrote about themselves and their fellow monks. Phyllis Granoff translates and discusses biographies and auto-biographies of two Jain monks who lived in the 11th and 14th centure C.E. Dr. Koichi Shinohara tells us how a community of Chinese Buddhists viewed the life of the founder of their group, and how his biography reflected the changes that the community underwent. The essays are a result of a joint research project on religious biographies.