Although Tibetan Buddhism is often associated with monks and canonical texts, other types of Buddhist practitioners and texts arealso important. Before the Fifth Dalai Lama came to power and Tibetan Buddhism became systematized, charismatic yoginscomposed and printed songs and biographies to promote a non-monastic ideal with remarkable success. Modeling their lifestyleupon Indian tantric siddhas and the 11th century Tibetan yogin Milarepa, whose tradition they followed and propagated, theyattempted to reform Tibetan Buddhism. Taking as a point of departure four texts which were printed in Southern Tibet in the earlysixteenth-century by a group of such yogins, this project will investigate how Buddhist songs and biographies were codified into adistinct genre in Tibet. By combining a traditional philological and historical approach with theories concerning the interaction betweenlife and texts, the history, function, and contents of these songs and biographies will be explored. Moreover, the people who collectedand printed the texts will be portrayed. The texts upon which the project focuses have never been translated, and the historical periodwhen they were produced has generally been neglected in contemporary scholarship. By scrutinizing this unique body of material,the project will contribute with important basic research. The project will also break new ground in unfolding the complicated web ofinterfaces between lives and texts, and in the textual corpus.