Sarnath

Sarnath, 10 km northeast of Varnasi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is where the Buddha gave his first teaching —the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma (see Three Turnings—to the five first excellent disciples in Deer Park. Ashoka erected monasteries, stupas and even one of his famous pillars (see Ashoka’s pillars). The Muslim invaders destroyed the city as most of the holy Buddhist sites of Northern India. Many of the remains have been excavated by British archeologists during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today apart from the archaeological discoveries and the museum, pilgrims at Sarnath can visit the Mahabodhi temple build by Dharmmapada where relics of the Buddha are enshrined, next to a bodhi tree planted in 1893 from the oldest bodhi tree in Sri Lanka. Next to it are the massive remains of the Dhamekha Stupa, built by Ashoka at the very place where the Buddha is believed to have given his first teaching. And few hundred meters down the road another stupa, the Chaukhandi stupa, marks the place where the Buddha met again the retinue of the five excellent disciples after they turned away from him when he abandoned the ascetic life.