tradition, a claim first found in the work of the sixth century scholar Zhiyi. The Tibetan tradition considers the verse portion to have been composed by the bodhisattva Maitreya and the prose commentary by Asanga. The attribution of both the root verses and commentary to bodhisattva Maitreya is found in some late Indian sources (post 11th century). The discovery of a Sanskrit fragment of the Ratnagotravibhāga in Saka script (dated to the 9th century by Kazuo Kano) which mentions Maitreya bodhisattva as the author of the 'root' (mūla) verses also shows that Central Asian Buddhists also attributed the work to bodhisattva Maitreya. Meanwhile, the Sanskrit manuscript found in Tibet contains no attribution. Several scholars have suggested that the Chinese and Tibetan traditions may be reconciled if perhaps Sāramati was also given the epithet of "Maitreya" (or if, vice versa, Sāramati was an epithet of the bodhisattva Maitreya), but Kazuo Kano notes that there is no evidence to support this. According to Karl Brunnhölzl, modern scholars have varying opinions on the authorship of the RGV: "the main positions include a total denial of a historic person named Maitreya, the author of these texts being someone called Maitreya but not the great bodhisattva Maitreya, and these works being com posed by Asanga or other persons" The Japanese scholar Takasaki Jikido is certain that the author of the commentary is Sāramati through his comparison of the RGVV with the Chinese translation of the Dharmadhātvaviśeṣaśāstra (Dasheng fajie wuchabie lun 大乘法界無差別論) which is also said to have been authored by the same figure. Jonathan Silk also argues that both texts were by the same author. Peter Harvey also finds the attribution to Maitreya / Asanga less plausible than the Chinese attribution. According to Shenpen Hookam, most modern scholars favor Sāramati (c. 3rd-4th century CE) as the author. Versions and transmission Sanskrit The critical edition of the RGVV in Sanskrit was first published by Johnston, et al. (1950). This critical edition of Johnston is founded on two manuscripts discovered by Rev. Rāhula Sāñkṛtyāyana (1893–1963) in Tibet. Of the complete extant Sanskrit [Johnston, et al. (1950)], Tibetan and Chinese manuscript versions, recension or interpolations of the text (according to perspective), Takasaki (1966) considered the Chinese translation of a no longer extant Sanskrit text to be the oldest manuscript in existence, though it may not represent the original Sanskrit perfectly. Chinese According to Takasaki (1966: p. 7), the