One of the commonalities of the many traditions within Buddhism is the centrality of the messages in the Buddha’s very first teaching in Sarnath, shortly after attaining enlightenment in Bodhgaya. Prior to that, however, still in Bodhgaya, he initiated his first male disciples, the merchant traders Trapusa and Bhallika who had kindly offered him his first meal since Sujata’s excellent rice porridge forty-nine days earlier. It was at this time that the newly awakened Buddha made clear a proclamation that became the blueprint for his intended ministry and legacy:

As long as my disciples have not become wise and quick of understanding, as long as the [monks and nuns] and the lay disciples of either sex are not able to refute their adversaries according to the Dharma, as long as my moral teaching has not been spread far and wide among gods and men, so long will I not pass away. [Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 34]

In other words, from the beginning the Buddha intended to create a complete and robust fourfold sangha that would carry the Dharma into the future. Forty-five years later, at the end of his life he recalls this commitment when he declares in the Mahaparinirvanasutra that his goal of creating an enduring fourfold sangha had been achieved. [Stars at Dawn, pp. 1, 197-99, 275]

As we know, when the Buddha was on the path of asceticism, he was accompanied by five companions (Kaundinya, Ashvajit, Vaspa, Mahanaman, and Bhadrika or in the Pali tradition, Kondañña, Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahanāma, and Assaji) who later abandoned him. Intending to spur him again when he arrived in Sarnath, they were so overwhelmed by his presence, they welcomed him, attended his first teachings, and became his disciples.

The Tibetan tradition commemorates the first teaching (Chokhor Duchen) on the fourth day of the sixth lunar month. Theravada traditions generally mark the date (Asalha Puja or Asanha Bucha) as the full moon of the eighth lunar month.

Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha's Liferecords a wonderful description of the setting of this teaching as recorded in the Sri Lankan tradition:

The evening was like a lovely female; the stars were pearls upon her neck, the blue clouds were her braided hair, and the expanse was her flowing robe. As a crown she had the [heavens]; the three worlds were as her body; her eyes were like the white lotus . . . ; and her voice was like the humming of a bee. To worship Buddha, and listen to the first proclaiming of the dharma, this lovely female came.

 

The Mahayana traditions set the stage a bit with a bit more fanfare.  Here is Jamgon Kongtrul’s description from The Treasury of Knowledge:

At that place, one thousand magnificent lion-supported thrones appeared. The Buddha circumambulated the first three; when he sat in cross-legged posture on the fourth, a great light spread throughout worlds in the ten directions, and a sound arose calling beings to listen to his teachings. A god called Bodhisattva Who Turned the Wheel of the Teachings upon Developing the Intention to Attain Awakening presented him with a one thousand-spoked wheel made of gold from the Jambu River. He and countless other bodhisattvas and gods assembled.

The Buddha then proceeded to expound the Middle Way between indulgence in desire and austerity (the term Middle Way is also used in a different context with a different meaning in the Madhyamaka philosophy of the Mahayana); the Noble Eightfold Path including Right Seeing, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Recollection, Right Concentration; and then the Four Noble Truths, the third of which comes back to the Eightfold Path.

[For an overview of the Eightfold Path, see our excerpt  from The Path of Individual Liberation concisely detailing the eight aspects. For an overview of the Four Noble Truths, see the sutta linked to from below.]

While many might take these for granted, sort of the ABCs from which they continue to study other teachings and engage in practice, there is so much depth to these teachings that many teachers advise students to spend a long time carefully studying them.

One of the most in-depth presentations of this teaching is Ajahn Sucitto’s Turning the Wheel of Truth: A Commentary on the Buddha's First Teaching.  This is really a commentary on the main text in the Pali tradition (where it appears in both the Sutta pitaka and the Vinaya pitaka), that retells the story, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.

You are welcome to download the Sutta itself, translated by Bhikku Bodhi and extracted from the book, here.

For a wonderful account from the Tibetan tradition, Buton Rinchen Drup’s account from the early 14^th century in Buton's History of Buddhism in India and Its Spread to Tibet is superb.

You can download Buton's section related to the first teaching in its entirety here.

 

From The Art of Buddhismcome several images related to this scene.  The image here crowned a column in Sarnath and is described here:

Four lions are placed back-to-back on the seven-foot capital that once adorned a similar column (now destroyed) built slightly earlier at Sarnath, the site of Shakyamuni’s first teaching. A large wheel, a traditional symbol of rule that is synonymous with the act of teaching—known as “turning the wheel of the law”—once rested above the lions. Emblems of royal power and prestige, lions are sometimes identifi ed as references to the historical Buddha, who was at times known as the “lion of the Shakya clan.”

The teaching on this appear in various lengths in many books, arguably all books on the teachings off the Buddha.  A few other works to highlight:

The Four Noble Truthsby Lobsang Gyatso.

A Life of the Buddha by Sherab Chodzin Kohn.