[Buddha-l] Back to the core values?

[Joy Vriens]

>The Rhinoceros Horn Sutta is part of the Apadaana in Pali as well as  
>the Suttanipaata, and also part of the Mahaavastu as well as being  
>found in Gaandhaarii. 

Thank you for the information.

>Note that Asoka refers to a text he calls 'the Summary of Vinaya'.  
>There is no way of determining whether this is a name for a text we  
>know under another name or a completely unknown text. It does seem to  
>be evidence that a body of Vinaya literature already existed.  
>Likewise, the use of what may be technical Vinaya language in the  
>edict Asoka addresses to the Sangha suggests that some form of Vinaya  
>is well-developed by this time. 

Yet at the same time isn't it Asoka who sends the bhikkus to all corners of the world (known by then) on a mission? How did he conceive that mission, individual monks or monks in very small groups?  
 
>>What was really new in the idea of a Buddhist Sangha to which people  
>>"converted"? As has been mentioned, most Bhikkhus were already  
>>"Bhikkhus". Couldn't the first conversions have simply been the  
>>decision to travel together (congregate)? In that sens the Sangha  
>>(the fact to be together) is indeed central to the development and  
>>survival of the thusly constituted group. But was there anything  
>>else to its centrality (in early early Buddhism)? I can easily see  
>>how it becomes central as soon as a lay community constitutes itself  
>>around a community of Bhikkus, for whom the service and support of  
>>the community becomes central as a practice. Am I missing anythin  
>>here? 
 
>But surely a lay community of some sort must have existed from the  
>moment the Buddha began teaching a group. Otherwise what could they  
>eat ? 

The same as all the other sanyasins, bhikkus, avadhutas etc. In the Buddha's legend the Buddha himself started almost on his own. Why would that change after his awakening? I don't believe the stories about groups of 500 monks and more traveling through small villages and hamlets begging for food for practical reasons. It would have been a terrible drain on the people. Although de Vallee poussin does mentions Buddhist monks (I believe, if memory serves me right, it may have been "fakirs") fasting *against* villages (in Gandhi style) in order to blackmail them. Once viharas were built there may have been larger communities, but I expect that in the very beginning the groups were very small, if there were any. They may simply have agreed to meet up in specific places for their fortnight practices.  
 
Joy