The Jade[-like Models for use in] Zhai Rituals is an anthology of Buddhist liturgical models preserved in a group of eighth to tenth century manuscripts from the excavated Dunhuang corpus. This work, which contains a distinctive organization scheme and a comprehensive collection of modular components in a variety of themes, is significant to the current understanding of liturgies performed in the widespread zhai rituals in Middle Period China, a nebulous genre of texts which survive only rarely in transmitted material dating from this period. This dissertation aims to contextualize the Jade-like Models through combined codicological and textual analyses of this group of manuscripts, to paint a fuller picture of the production, circulation, and usage of liturgies, liturgical models, and model anthologies in Chinese manuscript culture. The earliest extant Jade-like Models was likely compiled by a religious specialist affiliated with local authorities based in the Liangzhou region before the mid-eight century. In the following two centuries, while versions of the work continued to circulate in the Dunhuang region with a consistent selection and arrangement, religious specialists were also actively recombining and editing models to produce specialized anthologies in more variable formats to suit different needs and preferences. These processes were possibly encouraged by the layers of modular structure inherent in liturgies and also the heavy focus of model anthologies on descriptive parallel prose, especially descriptions of individuals acting as donors or primary ritual subjects and depictions of desired ritual outcomes, over effective and functional elements crucial to performed liturgies. Instances of parallels discovered between the Jade-like Models and other established genres including administrative documents, commemorative texts, and court literature, indicate that Buddhist liturgies may have assimilated compositions created for other purposes. These findings illustrate the fluidity of production and transmission of literary and religious knowledge in Middle Period China, and highlight the value of manuscripts as individual material and textual objects for fruitful investigation.