Within the Buddhist tradition, the Lotus Sutra is not credited to any individual author or compiler. Rather, it is presented as the direct preaching of Śākyamuni Buddha, preserved and transmitted within the community of practitioners. From a historical and scholarly perspective, however, the text is understood as a later Mahayana composition, emerging long after the lifetime of the historical Buddha. Its formation is best seen as a collective endeavor, shaped by multiple unknown authors and monastic communities over an extended period, rather than the work of a single figure.

Scholars generally agree that the Lotus Sutra was composed and compiled in stages. The earliest layers are usually placed between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE, with the core of the text substantially in place by the 2nd century CE. Further additions and revisions appear to have continued into roughly the 3rd century CE, and some accounts extend this process into the 3rd–4th centuries CE. Thus, the sutra can be viewed as a living document of the Mahayana movement, gradually refined and expanded as communities deepened their understanding of the universality of Buddhahood.

This dual perspective—traditional attribution to the Buddha’s own teaching and scholarly recognition of a gradual, anonymous compilation—invites a contemplative reading of the text. The absence of a named author shifts attention away from individual genius and toward the shared spiritual imagination of early Mahayana practitioners. In this way, the Lotus Sutra stands as a testament not only to a doctrinal vision of universal Buddhahood, but also to the communal process through which that vision was articulated, preserved, and handed down.