Dateline: 1 December 2025. If Bodhgaya is where the Buddha attained enlightenment, Sarnath is where that enlightenment found its voice. A short drive from the Rivatas by Ideal, our hotel in Varanasi, brought us to this town, once known as the Deer Park. It was here that he sought out the five ascetics who had earlier abandoned him, and it was here that he delivered his first sermon.
Inside, the central hall, known as the Tathagata Gallery, is spacious and lofty. Two wings extend from it, divided into smaller galleries with each devoted to a different period of Buddhist art.
In that main hall stands one of the most imposing figures in early Buddhist art: the colossal standing Bodhisattva, often referred to as the Bala Bodhisattva. An inscription recorded that it was installed by a monk named Bala during the reign of King Kanishka in the early second century. This figure is carved from spotted red sandstone from Mathura. Even in its damaged state, with the right arm missing, it radiates strength. Between its feet is a small lion of the Shakya clan, the “Lion of the Shakyas”.
In the same central hall stood an object even more consequential: the Lion Capital of Ashoka. If the Bodhisattva statue spoke of devotion, this one spoke of power: imperial, deliberate and meant to last.
The original pillar once stood more than 15 metres high in the Deer Park. Today, there is only its crowning capital, moved indoors in 1910 for protection when the museum was completed. Carved from a single block of sandstone, the surface still gleams with a smoothness that feels almost improbable for something over two millennia old.
Four Asiatic lions sat back to back, facing the four cardinal directions, proclaming the Dhamma to the four corners of the earth. Beneath them was a circular abacus carved with four animals - elephant, bull, horse and lion - separated by wheels. The Dharmachakra appeared again and again, reinforcing the idea of motion, of teaching set into motion. Supporting all of this was an inverted lotus.
Today, this sculpture is the National Emblem of India. The lions appear on every Indian rupee note, passport and government seal. The wheel on the Indian flag traces its lineage to the chakras carved on this very abacus. What began as an imperial monument commissioned by Ashoka in the third century BC has become the visual shorthand of a modern republic.
In that sermon he articulated the Four Noble Truths, outlined the Eightfold Path and spoke of the Middle Way he had discovered after abandoning indulgence and self-mortification. What had been a silent contemplation beneath the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya became here a teaching shared with others. The wheel began to turn.
Sarnath felt different from Bodhgaya. There is less intensity, less constant movement. Open lawns stretched between the ruins of monasteries that once housed thousands of monks. There is space here to breathe and so we sat down on the grass beneath the shadow of the stupa for a 30-minute chanting and meditation session, a gentle breeze moving gently through our group.
If Bodh Gaya is the heart of Buddhism, Sarnath is its voice. The insight gained in solitude was first spoken here, a few hundred metres from where that red sandstone Bodhisattva now stands in the museum hall. From this quiet park near Varanasi, the teaching began its long journey across centuries and continents. And with that, our four essential stops on this pilgrimage tour were complete.
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