On a closer analysis of this discourse, however, certain incongruities appear in the fabric of the text. The First Discourse cannot be treated as a verbatim transcript of what the Buddha taught in the Deer Park, but as a document that has evolved over an unspecified period of time until it reached the form in which it is found today in the canons of the different Buddhist schools. At this point, modern historical-critical scholarship comes to our aid as a means of upsetting some of the time-honored views of Buddhist orthodoxy.
