Dharmachakra
Also called wheel of dharma, dharma wheel
The Buddha’s first sermon; the wheel is older than that telling
Buddhist symbolsDharmachakra meaning
The dharmachakra is the wheel of the Buddha’s teaching, set turning at Sarnath. Eight spokes are the usual later count, for the eightfold path. A hub that does not move is part of the point.
A wheel set turning, with a hub that does not.
The name. Dharma, the teaching or the law of things; chakra, wheel.
Where it comes from
The first sermon, at Sarnath, is called the setting in motion of the wheel of dharma. Eight spokes are commonly read as the Noble Eightfold Path. Indian wheels are older than Buddhism: solar signs, weapons, royal standards. The Ashokan wheel on the Indian flag has twenty-four spokes, not eight. They are related objects and not the same diagram.
Buddhist
Motion with a still center
A wheel works because the rim travels and the hub does not. The teaching is like that: it moves through lives and languages, and it claims a point that is not itself spinning. Eight is a memory-aid for the path. It is not the only honest count a wheel can have.
Indic
The flag is not the sermon
The lion capital and its twenty-four-spoke wheel became a national emblem in the twentieth century. That use is real and political. It does not rewrite the Sarnath sermon, and the sermon does not own the flag. Ask which wheel you were shown.
Near this
Sources
- The first sermon at Sarnath (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta)
- Ashokan lion capital and later wheel iconography
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.