The First Sermon is remembered in Buddhist tradition as the moment the Buddha's private realization became a public teaching capable of guiding others, distinguishing his enlightenment, a personal attainment, from this subsequent act of instruction, without which, Buddhist tradition holds, the Dhamma would have remained known to only one person and Buddhism as an organized tradition would never have developed.
The eight-spoked Dharmachakra, the Wheel of Dharma, one of the most widely recognized symbols across the whole of Buddhism, takes its name and its central meaning directly from this event, the setting in motion of the wheel of teaching, and the symbol appears across Buddhist art, architecture and institutional identity from ancient stone carvings to the flag of modern India, whose central emblem draws on the same image.
Sarnath developed over subsequent centuries into one of the four principal Buddhist pilgrimage sites, alongside Lumbini, Bodh Gaya and Kushinagar, marking respectively the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, first teaching and death, and archaeological excavation at the site has uncovered substantial remains of ancient monasteries and stupas reflecting its sustained importance to Buddhist practice across many centuries following the event the site commemorates.