This book by Beata Grant is welcome not only because it is one of the few full-length studies of Buddhist nuns in premodern China, but also because it adds a nuanced dimension to our understanding of literate women's culture in Jiangnan during the Ming-Qing transition. Through a careful reading of seven women Chan masters' “discourse records” (yulu)—including biographical accounts, sermons, letters, and poems—collected in a seventeenth-century Buddhist canon known as the Jiaxing dazang jing, Grant details individual nuns' lives and presents their self-representations as orthodox successors in the Linji lineage.

Troubled by the negative portrayals of nuns in Ming-Qing secular literature, Grant aims to “redress the one-sidedness of the popular perceptions of nuns in premodern Chinese culture” (p. 4). Siding with Jiang Wu's point that the seventeenth century saw “the ‘reinvention’ of Chan Buddhism” (p. 9), she calls attention to the presence of women dharma heirs in the Linji revival led by Chan monk Miyun Yuanwu (1566–1642). After a chapter analyzing the images of nuns in monks' writings, Grant presents her subject in six chapters. Qiyuan Xinggang (1597–1654), “the matriarch of seventeenth-century women Chan masters” (p. 37), is discussed in chapters 3 and 4. Two of her seven dharma heirs, Yikui Chaochen (1625–79) and Yigong Chaoke (1615–61), are the focus of chapter 5. Jizong Xingche (b. 1606) and Ziyong Chengru, originally from outside the Zhejiang-Jiangsu area, are discussed in chapters 6 and 9, respectively. Finally, Baochi Jizong (chapter 7) and Zukui Jifu (chapter 8) were both dharma heirs of Chan monk Jiqi Hongchu (1605–72).

What distinguishes Grant's study from previous scholarship on premodern Chinese nuns is its substantial use of women's own writings, thus enabling us to hear these nuns' voices and understand their religious experiences from their perspectives. Not content with Pure Land Buddha recitation, they engaged in intensive meditation, in particular Chan huatou investigation. As members of the Linji school, they embraced the classical Chan rhetoric of gender equality and employed the “blows and shouts” (banghe) in their instruction. In their self-representations or remarks on one another, they frequently referred to women masters such as Moshan Liaoran and Miaozong, indicating their mastery of the Chan textual tradition and their awareness of their own roles in the continuation of the Linji lineage.

These women masters, moreover, wrote to assure each other's legacy in Chan history. Qiyuan Xinggang's xingzhuang (record of conduct) was compiled by Yikui Chaochen, who also wrote a preface to Yigong Chaoke's yulu. Zukui Jifu composed a verse and an elegy for Yigong Chaoke. She and Baochi Jizong wrote colophons for each other and together produced a collection of verses on ancient Chan cases. Thus, although these women, as Grant notes, “wrote ‘as men do’” (p. viii), they appropriated Chan patriarchal discourse to claim their own agency.

Grant convincingly presents a positive picture of nuns in late imperial China. Solid evidence and excellent translation aside, however, a more in-depth analysis could have further revealed how women responded to changes during a turbulent dynastic transition. What implications, for example, can we discern from Grant's emphasis on these women's close connections with Ming loyalists, except knowing that all began their abbatial careers and enjoyed prominence after 1644? Or can the recovery of nuns' writings shed new light on what it was like to be an educated woman facing ideological conflicts and real-life obstacles during an age known for the glorification of female suicide, the cult of widow chastity, and, perhaps more importantly, the erosion of women's property rights?

Given the exciting evidence revealed in these nuns' yulu, one must note that Grant does not take issue with earlier studies of Ming-Qing Buddhism, based on men's writings, and that some points made in her epilogue seem to undermine women's significance in the Linji Chan revival. Having demonstrated that women Chan masters not only formed strong bonds but also were serious about monastic discipline, Grant might have reassessed Jiang Wu's conclusion about seventeenth-century Linji Chan, which argued that its main figures caused disharmony and that the revival was based “on a largely romantic and imaginary reading of the classical Chan textual tradition and was largely ungrounded in actual monastic training and routine” (p. 185). Although Grant shows that women took their roles as Chan masters as seriously as their male counterparts, she seems still inclined to view men as the main active participants and suggests that because male Qing literati had little interest in Chan, the revival of Linji Chan eventually lost steam. Women, consequently, became less likely to be recognized as dharma heirs and masters. Despite the foregoing suggestions, Grant's book deserves appreciation and attention from all those interested in Chinese women's history and the study of women in Buddhism.