Sermon of Benares
From AnthroWiki
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The Sermon of Benares was the first doctrinal discourse delivered by the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama after his enlightenment, which had come to him under the Bodhi Tree. At the seer's stone in the gazelle grove at Benares (Sanskrit: बनारस Banāras)[1], which lies in northern India on the Ganges, the Buddha proclaimed to the 5 ascetics who had accompanied him on his quest for knowledge the "Middle Way" he had found, which avoids the extremes of debauchery on the one hand and strict asceticism on the other, and leads to the knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, which lead to the Noble Eightfold Path, which leads to salvation from suffering by stopping the wheel of rebirths and to final extinction in Nirvana.
