Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

More than 2,600 years ago, in the Deer Park at Isipatana — a forest where the deer were left in peace — near the city of Bārāṇasī, on the full moon of the eighth lunar month, the Buddha taught the Dhamma for the first time. This is the story of that day.

After his awakening under the Bodhi tree at Uruvelā (today's Bodh Gaya), the Buddha reflected…

He thought of his former teachers, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, wise men with little dust in their eyes — but both had already died.

Then he remembered the group of five monks — Koṇḍañña, Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahānāma and Assaji — who had looked after him while he practised severe austerities.

But when he gave up tormenting himself and began to eat again, the five thought he had given up the struggle. Disappointed, they left him and went to stay at Isipatana.

Walking on foot towards Bārāṇasī, he met a wandering ascetic named Upaka.

Upaka shook his head and went off down another road. A thought to keep: even meeting someone who knows is wasted if the mind isn't open.

When the five saw the Buddha coming in the distance, they made an agreement.

But as he came near, the five could not keep their agreement. They all stood up to welcome him — one took his bowl and robe, one prepared a seat, one brought water for his feet, another set out a footstool.

Still, they addressed him by name and called him “āvuso” — “friend” — as an equal.

Three times they objected like this.

So the five agreed to listen — and the first sermon began.

He had lived both: a prince's life in the palace and six years of austerities. He spoke from experience — neither road leads out of suffering.

That is why the eight spokes of the Dhamma wheel are often used as a symbol of this eightfold path.

Then he taught the four noble truths — the heart of this discourse.

The illness simile comes from the Visuddhimagga, not from the sutta itself.

“Dukkha” here doesn't only mean sadness. It means that which is impermanent, cannot stay as it is, and so cannot truly be relied on. The task towards suffering is to understand it fully.

“Taṇhā” literally means thirst — like someone in a desert chasing a mirage: the more they run, the thirstier they get. The task towards the origin is to abandon it.

When the fuel runs out, the fire goes out by itself. This cessation of suffering is Nibbāna. The task towards it is to realise it — and the way leading there is the eightfold path described above, which is to be developed.

He explained that he had known each truth in three rounds: knowing “what this is” (sacca-ñāṇa), knowing “what must be done with it” (kicca-ñāṇa), and knowing “it has been done” (kata-ñāṇa). Three rounds × four truths = twelve aspects.

While this teaching was being given, the spotless, stainless eye of Dhamma arose in Venerable Koṇḍañña.

He saw it for himself, not just as words remembered — the first person in the Buddha's dispensation to become a noble disciple (a stream-enterer).

When the Buddha had set the Wheel of Dhamma in motion, the earth devas raised a cry, and it was passed up from heaven to heaven — the Four Great Kings, Tāvatiṃsa, Yāma, Tusita, Nimmānarati, Paranimmitavasavattī, all the way to the Brahma world.

The ten-thousandfold world system shook, and a great, immeasurable radiance appeared in the world.

So he became known as Añña Koṇḍañña — “Koṇḍañña who has understood” — and the very first monk of the Buddha's teaching. That day, for the first time, the Triple Gem was complete: the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saṅgha.

The full-moon day of the eighth month, when this first sermon was given, is celebrated as Āsāḷha Pūjā. Each year Buddhists walk three times around the temple hall with candles, remembering the day the Wheel of Dhamma began to turn.

Soon the other four also gained the eye of Dhamma, and on hearing the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, all five became arahants.