Many ancient Indian texts have not survived into the modern era, creating a challenge in establishing the historic commonalities between Theravada and Mahayana. The texts preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, with parallel Chinese translations, have provided a breakthrough. Among these is the Mahayana text Salistamba Sutra which no longer exists in a Sanskrit version, but does in Tibetan and Chinese versions. This Mahayana text contains numerous sections which are remarkably the same as the Theravada Pali Canon and Nikaya Buddhism. The Śālistamba Sutra was cited by Mahayana scholars such as the 8th-century Yasomitra to be authoritative. This suggests that Buddhist literature of different traditions shared a common core of Buddhist texts in the early centuries of its history until Mahayana literature diverged about and after the 1st century CE.