Kumarajiva’s fifth-century Chinese rendering (Taishō 262) still reigns supreme across East Asia: it’s polished, readable and formed the bedrock for virtually every later commentary in China, Korea and Japan. Dharmarakṣa’s older version (Taishō 263) often turns up in comparative studies—its more literal style sheds light on how early Chinese Buddhists grappled with Sanskrit idioms. Xuanzang’s mid-7th-century revision (Taishō 264) adds another layer, but tends to be used more sparingly, prized for its fidelity to the Indian originals he collected on the Silk Road.

On the Sanskrit side, no complete autograph survives. What remains are scattered fragments from Gilgit, Merv and Dunhuang. Those scraps underpin two “critical” reconstructions that scholars lean on today. The first is Louis de la Vallée Poussin’s monumental 1927–29 reconstruction—a workhorse in Western academia, even if it feels a bit dated by now. The second is the so-called Tokyo Critical Edition (late 20th century), assembled at the Tōyō Bunko by matching the Gilgit parchment rolls with Dunhuang manuscripts and cross-referencing Tibetan and Chinese versions. That edition has just benefited from the International Dunhuang Project’s 2024 upload of high-resolution scans, making it easier than ever to check variant readings from one language to another.

In practice, most modern translators juggle Kumarajiva’s flowing Chinese with the Tokyo Critical Sanskrit to triangulate meaning. It’s a bit like comparing two lenses on the same camera: the Chinese gives the broader painting, while the reconstructed Sanskrit helps sharpen the original brushstrokes. Together, they offer the fullest—if never perfectly complete—view of the Lotus Sutra’s message that every being harbors Buddha nature.