Numerous scholarly controversies have surrounded the study of the texts in the last three-quarters of a century; this volume seeks to resolve some of them -- the extent, origins, and formal characteristics of the texts, the meaning of pien-wen, the identity of the authors who composed these popular narratives and the describes who copied them, the relationship of the texts to oral performance, and the reasons for the apparently sudden demise of the genre around the beginning of the Sung dynasty.

Mair's is a multi-disciplinary study that integrates findings from religious, literary, linguistic, sociological, and historical materials, carried out with philological rigor. It includes an extensive bibliography of relevant sources in many languages.