Five ascetics were present at the Buddha’s first sermon at Sarnath.
These five men were former companions of Siddhartha Gautama during his years of extreme ascetic practice. When Siddhartha accepted food and abandoned self-mortification, they believed he had given up the spiritual quest and left him. After his enlightenment, he sought them out at the Deer Park in Isipatana, now identified with Sarnath near Varanasi.
There he delivered the discourse traditionally known as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, or “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma.” The teaching presented the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path. The five ascetics were Kondañña, Assaji, Bhaddiya, Vappa, and Mahānāma.
The number is sometimes confused with the first Buddhist community as a whole, which expanded soon afterward. Kondañña became the first of the five to gain the “Dhamma eye,” while the others were progressively instructed. Sarnath therefore marks both the Buddha’s first sermon and the beginning of the historical Sangha.