Hi David,TheDhamma wrote: "Then the venerable Kassapa the Great questioned the venerable Ananda as to the provenance of the Samannaphala and he questioned him as to the individual. In this same way he questioned him about the five Nikayas. Constantly, questioned, the venerable Ananda answered."
Vinaya, Cullavagga XI
My emphasis in bold above, notice how that sentence appears to be a summarizing statement, stating all of the rest that was recited at the First Council.
At least from the Canonical account (Tipitaka), there appears to be no indication that the Abhidhamma was recited at the First Council.
Thanks for the quote. I agree that it looks like a summarizing statement, though we can't know whether abhidhamma (the material that's designated as abhidhamma pitaka nowadays) was included in those days in the 5th nikaya as the commentary says, or not.
That's why it might be useful to examine the different classifications of teachings and when they appeared. From my very limited reading so far, there are 3 classifications:
1. The ninefold division - mentioned many times in the suttas (the materials that are designated as sutta pitaka nowadays), so it seems to co-exist with the life of the Buddha.
2. The 5 nikayas - this classification is mentioned in your quote, so the question is if it existed prior to the first council or not.
3. The 3 pitakas - the questions is whether this classification existed prior to the third council, and if so, when did it appear.
There are other more general classifications like Dhamma and vinaya, sutta and vinaya, but these seem more like generalizations that can mean different things in different contexts.
Anyway, it seems the logical thing to do would be to figure out how all the materials that we currently have in the 3 pitakas were arranged according to different classifications. For example, I think I recall reading somewhere that both vinaya and abhidhamma (the materials we nowadays designate as vinaya and abhidhamma pitakas) were classified as parts of the 5th Nikaya, but I'm pretty sure that was a commentarial explanation. Figuring out this stuff will be pretty hard since whatever info there might be, it's mostly in the commentaries.
Best wishes