Reading the A.t.thakavaggo (Sn IV) I am struck by the enormous gulf
between the "No View" position it advocates, and the "Right View"
position repeatedly stressed in the first four Nikaaya-s.
I have read that, on linguistic and metrical grounds, the
A.t.thakavaggo (Sn IV) is probably one of the oldest parts of the
Canon. This might lead to the conjecture that, early on in the
Buddha's teaching career, "Buddhist doctrine" had not yet been
formally stated. Perhaps the Noble Eightfold Path, including of
course "Right View," did not exist at the time the A.t.thakavaggo was
composed.
Yet the Buddha's two very first discourses -- the
Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta (SN LVI.11) and the Anatta-lakhana Sutta
(SN XXII.59) -- include all the key points (Middle Way, Four Noble
Truths, Noble Eightfold Path, Anicca, Anatta, Dukkha) of "Buddhist
doctrine."
If those two Suttas were actually delivered in the form we now have
them -- and that is of course a major assumption -- then the Buddha
did indeed teach Right View from the very beginning.
(The alternative is that "Buddhist doctrine" was retrospectively
inserted into two very bare-bones accounts of the Buddha re-
encountering the Group of Five.)
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, in his notes published at Access to Insight,
reconciles No View and Right View with the raft analogy -- Right View
is only needed until one has reached the far shore.
If that is true, then where does it leave the A.t.thakavaggo? As a
teaching for superior people who had no need of the N8FP, etc.?
Perhaps some light can be shed on all these questions by considering
the process of Sangha formation.
In the early days, when the Buddha's followers were very few, there
can have been no need for the institution of a formalized Sangha,
with precepts, patimokkha, ceremonies, etc.
Is it possible that, as the Sangha became formalized, some of the
Buddha's earliest disciples went their own way, carrying
the "superior" teachings with them? I have also read that it is known
that the entire Sangha (which must have by then been huge) was not
present at the First Council, when the process of Canon formation
began.
All this is a very long-winded way of arriving at my real question,
which is ...
"Whatever happened to Añña Kondañña?"
If anyone has the time, inclination, and a copy of the CSCD, I'd be
interested to know where, apart from the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta
(SN LVI.11) and the Anatta-lakhana Sutta (SN XXII.59) there is
mention of the terms:
(1) "kondañño" or "kondañña" etc (Kondañña)
(2) "pañca vaggi" or "pañcavaggi" etc (The Group of Five)