What the Buddha Preached in his first Sermon at Sarnath?

Sarnath, a small town near Varanasi is the place where Lord Buddha delivered his first sermon. It was after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya(in Bihar) that the Buddha travelled to Sarnath. At Sarnath, in the pristine surroundings of the deer park, the Buddha preached his first set of teachings to the five ascetics who had known him earlier. The Buddha explained to them the Four Noble Truths and The Eight-fold Path.According to Buddha, the four noble truth's are : 1. There is suffering; 2. Suffering has a cause; 3. The cause is removable, and 4. There are ways to remove the causes.

He prescribed the eight-fold path to remove the causes which included:Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood, Right effort, Right mindfulness, Right concentration, Right attitude and Right view.
Eventually, Sarnath evolved and developed as a center of the Sammatiya school of buddhist learning.Several other 'suttas' were preached by Gautama Buddha over the next few years.These are:
the Anattalakkhana Sutta,
the Saccavibhanga Sutta,
the Pañca Sutta (S.iii.66f),
the Rathakāra or Pacetana Sutta (A.i.110f),
the two Pāsa Suttas (S.i.105f),
the Samaya Sutta (A.iii.320ff),
the Katuviya Sutta (A.i.279f.),
a discourse on the Metteyyapañha of the Parāyana (A.iii.399f), and
the Dhammadinna Sutta (S.v.406f), preached to the distinguished layman Dhammadinna, who came to see the Buddha.

Later though, towards the end of the 12th century, Sarnath was destroyed by the invading Turkish Muslims. The site was discovered by Alexander Cunningham during the British rule in India.