Within the broad family of texts associated with the Mahāparinirvāṇa, the most authoritative witnesses are those that have served as the primary scriptural basis for Buddhist traditions and for modern scholarship. At the level of Indic sources, only partial Sanskrit manuscripts and Central Asian fragments survive, including material from regions such as Gilgit and Turfan. These fragments, though incomplete, are treated as crucial for reconstructing earlier strata of the scripture and for checking later translations. They do not, however, constitute a continuous, fully preserved recension and therefore function more as touchstones than as a single, definitive text.

For East Asian Buddhism, the Chinese translations hold particular weight, both historically and doctrinally. Faxian’s translation (T.376), based on a shorter Indian recension, represents an early and more concise form of the scripture and is valued for its antiquity. Dharmakṣema’s translation (T.374), by contrast, is a much longer work, traditionally divided into many fascicles, and stems from a more expansive northern Indian or Central Asian recension. This version became the principal authority for the rich Buddha‑nature teachings and for the strong affirmations of the “eternality” of the Buddha and nirvāṇa, shaping Chinese, Korean, and Japanese understandings of the text. A later composite redaction (T.375), produced by Chinese exegetes who harmonized Dharmakṣema’s work with other materials, is significant within the commentarial tradition but is generally regarded as derivative of T.374.

In the Tibetan tradition, a translation preserved in the Kangyur reflects a shorter Indian recension, closer in scale to the early core represented by Faxian’s version than to Dharmakṣema’s expansive text. This Tibetan witness is treated as authoritative within its own canon and is often consulted in comparative work, especially when read alongside the Chinese translations and the surviving Sanskrit fragments. Its relative brevity means that it does not contain the full range of Buddha‑nature elaborations found in Dharmakṣema’s Chinese version, yet it remains an important lens on how the scripture was understood in another major Mahāyāna milieu.

For readers approaching the scripture in modern languages, the most influential gateways have been translations based on Dharmakṣema’s Chinese text. Kosho Yamamoto’s English rendering of this long version, later revised by others, has served as the first complete English presentation of the expansive Mahāparinirvāṇa teaching and is often used as a starting point for study. Other modern efforts, including partial translations of key chapters, tend to focus on the Buddha‑nature sections and are valued for their philological care rather than for comprehensive coverage. From a scholarly perspective, no single modern translation is treated as absolutely definitive; instead, careful study typically involves triangulating Dharmakṣema’s Chinese version with Faxian’s shorter text, the Tibetan translation, and the available Sanskrit and Central Asian fragments, allowing the multifaceted portrayal of the Buddha’s passing and eternal nature to emerge in a more nuanced way.