 The sutra was translated into Chinese by Dharmakṣema, beginning in the year 414.The anthology consists of 17 sutras across 60 fascicles, but the only extant copy of the entire collection is found in Chinese, though individual sutras can be found in Sanskrit and Tibetan.Sutra number 15 in the collection is particularly influential because it enumerates the notion of the decline of the Dharma, or decline of the Buddha's teachings, dividing this into three eras, subdivided by 5 five-hundred periods of time