Scholars generally agree that the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra took shape over a few centuries. The earliest kernels probably emerged in North India around the second century CE, as Mahāyāna communities began weaving together older oral traditions about the Buddha’s final hours. Over time, it grew into a “patchwork quilt” of teachings—some sections emphasizing the imperishable, tathāgata-nature at the heart of every being, others detailing narrative episodes of the Buddha’s last days.

No single author can be named. Instead, it reflects the collective work of nameless monastics and lay practitioners who added layers of doctrinal reflection. By the time the complete Sanskrit version circulated among Indian Buddhists, perhaps in the fourth or fifth century CE, it had become one of Mahāyāna’s landmark texts.

Around 421 CE, the so-called “northern” recension was rendered into Chinese by the Central Asian translator Dharmakṣema. This 100 scroll edition—commissioned under the Northern Liang ruler Juqu Mengxun—helped anchor the bodhisattva emphasis on eternal Buddha-nature in East Asia. A shorter Chinese recension, translated a decade earlier, hints at even more fluid transmission.

Today’s modern editions lean heavily on those Chinese renditions, since the original Sanskrit largely disappeared until scattered manuscripts resurfaced in the twentieth century. In a way, the Sūtra lives on as a testament to communal devotion: an evolving tapestry rather than the handiwork of any single figure, much like today’s open-source projects that invite contributions from many hands.