Siddhartha

By Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha is an allegorical novel by Hermann Hesse which deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian boy called Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. The book was written in German, in a simple, yet powerful and lyrical style. It was first published in 1922, after Hesse had spent some time in India in the 1910s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GENERAL PRESS
• Release date: Feb 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9788190276665

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was a highly acclaimed German author. He was known most famously for his novels Steppenwolfand Siddhartha and his novel The Glass Bead Game earned Hesse a Nobel prize in Literature in 1946. Many of his works explore topics pertaining to self-prescribed societal ostracization. Hesse was fascinated with ways in which one could break the molds of traditional society in an effort to dig deeper into the conventions of selfhood. His fascination with personal awareness earned himself something of a following in the later part of his career. Perceived thus as a sort of “cult-figure” for many young English readers, Hesse’s works were a gateway into their expanding understanding of eastern mysticism and spirituality. Despite Hesse’s personal fame, Siddhartha, was not an immediate success. It was only later that his works received noticeable recognition, largely with audiences internationally. The Glass Bead Game was Hermann Hesse’s final novel, though he continued to express his beliefs through varying forms of art including essays, poems, and even watercolor paintings.

Book preview

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Contents

Introduction

Hermann Hesse

Part One

The Son of the Brahmin

With the Samanas

Gotama

Awakening

Part Two

Kamala

With the Childlike People

Samsara

By the River

The Ferryman

The Son

Om

Govinda

Introduction

Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse dealing with the spiritual journey of an Indian named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.

The book, Hesse’s ninth novel (1922), was written in German, in a simple, powerful, and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became popular during the 1960s. Hesse dedicated Siddhartha to his wife Meiner Frau Ninon Gewidmet and supposedly afterwards to Romain Rolland and Wilhelm Gundert.

The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (meaning), which together means ‘he who has found meaning (of existence)’ or ‘he who has attained his goals’. The Buddha’s name, before his renunciation, was Prince Siddhartha Gautama. He was Prince of Kapilavastu, Nepal. In this book, the Buddha is referred to as ‘Gotama’.

The story takes place in ancient India around the time of Gautama Buddha. Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, leaves his home to join the ascetics with his companion Govinda. The two set out in search of enlightenment. Siddhartha takes to asceticism, after renouncing a worldly life of having a lover and living the life of a merchant in order to achieve his goal.

Experience is the aggregate of conscious events experienced by a human in life – it connotes participation, learning and knowledge. Understanding is comprehension and internalization. Hesse’s crafting of Siddhartha’s journey shows that understanding is attained not through scholastic, mind-dependent methods, nor through immersing oneself in the carnal pleasures of the world and the accompanying pain of samsara; however, it is the totality of these experiences that helps Siddhartha to attain understanding.

Thus, the individual events are meaningless when considered by themselves – Siddhartha’s stay with the Samanas and his immersion in the world of love and business did not lead to nirvana, yet they cannot be considered distractions, for every action and event, that is undertaken or occurs, helps Siddhartha termed as to achieve understanding. The sum of these events is thus experience.

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), German poet and novelist, conveys through his works the duality of spirit and nature, body versus mind and the individual’s spiritual search outside the restrictions of the society. Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.

Hesse was born in 1877 in Calw, Germany on July 2, 1877. His parents expected him to follow the family tradition of following theology, so he entered the Protestant seminary at Maulbronn in 1891. But he was expelled from the school. After unhappy experiences at a secular school, Hesse took up several jobs.

In 1899, Hesse published his first works, Romantische Lieder and Eine Stunde Hinter Mitternacht and became a freelance writer in 1904, when his novel Peter Camenzind won literary success. The book reflected Hesse’s disgust with the educational system. In the same year, he married Maria Bernoulli, with whom he had three children. A visit to India in 1911 drew him to study of Eastern religions and culminated in the novel Siddhartha (1922). It was based on the early life of Gautama Buddha. The culture of ancient Hindus and Chinese had a significant impact on his works.

Hesse spent the years of World War I in Switzerland, attacking the prevailing tendency towards militarism and nationalism. In his novel, Demian (1919), he tells a Faustian tale of a man torn between his orderly bourgeois existence and a chaotic world of sensuality.

He left his family in 1919 and moved to Montagnola, in southern Switzerland. He married second time to Ruth Wenger (1924-27) but it was an unhappy marrige. These difficult years led him to pen down Der Steppenwolf (1927). In 1931, he married his third wife, Ninon Dolbin, and the same year wrote his masterpiece, Das Glasperlenspiel, which was published in 1943. In 1942, he had sent the manuscript to Berlin for publication but it was not accepted by the Nazis. The work appeared for the first time in Zurich. Hesse’s other central works include, In Sight of Chaos (1923), a collection of essays, the novel Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and Poems (1970).

After receiving the Nobel Prize, he wrote no major works. He died of cerebral haemorrhage in his sleep on August 9, 1962, at the age of eighty-five. He is considered one of the best-selling German writers in the world.

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Part One

The Son of the Brahmin

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Siddhartha, the handsome son of the Brahmin, the young falcon, grew up together with his friend Govinda, the Brahmin’s son, in the shadow of the house, in the sun of the riverbank near the boats, in the shadow of the sala forest, and in the shadow of the fig trees. The sun tanned his fair shoulders on the riverbank while he bathed, during the holy cleansing, at the holy sacrifices. Shadows flowed into his black eyes in the mango grove, during the boyish games, when his mother sang, at the holy sacrifices, during the teaching of his father the scholar, and when speaking with the wise ones. For a long time Siddhartha had taken part in the wise ones’ discussions; he had practiced word-wrestling with Govinda, had practiced the art of contemplation and the duty of meditation with Govinda. He already understood how to speak the Om silently, that word of words, how to speak it silently in his inner being as he inhaled, how to pronounce it silently out of himself as he exhaled, how to do so with his whole soul while his forehead was enveloped by the radiance of the clear-thinking mind. He already understood how to recognize Atman within this inner essence of his that was indestructible and one with the universe.

Joy sprang up in his father’s heart over the son who was so apt to learn and so thirsty after knowledge; he saw growing within him a great sage and priest, a prince among the Brahmins.

Delight welled up in his mother’s heart when she saw him taking long strides, saw him sitting down and standing up: Siddhartha the strong and handsome, who strode upon lean legs and who greeted her with impeccable manners.

All the young daughters of the Brahmins felt love stirring within their hearts when Siddhartha walked through the side-streets of the city with a beaming face, a lean physique, and a royal look in his eyes.

Govinda the Brahmin’s son, however, loved him more than all of these. He loved the eye of Siddhartha and his sweet voice, his gait and the perfection of his movements; he loved everything that Siddhartha did and said, and above all he loved Siddhartha’s mind, his sublime and fiery thoughts, his blazing will, and Siddhartha’s high calling. Govinda knew that this would be no ordinary Brahmin, no lazy official presiding over the sacrifices, no money-grubbing merchant hawking magic trinkets, no vain and vacuous speaker, no wicked and lying priest, and also not a good-hearted but dim-witted sheep in the plebeian herds. Govinda didn’t want to be such a person either, didn’t want to be a Brahmin like all the ten thousand other Brahmins. He wanted to follow Siddhartha, who was beloved and majestic. When Siddhartha first became a god, when he entered into the radiance, then Govinda wanted to follow him as his friend, his escort, his servant, his spear-carrier, and his shadow.

In this manner, everyone loved Siddhartha. He brought everyone joy; he pleased everyone.

However, Siddhartha didn’t bring himself joy; he didn’t please himself. He strolled on the rosy paths of the fig gardens, sat in the blue shadows of the grove of meditation, washed his limbs daily in baths of atonement, and sacrificed in the deep shadows of the mango forest. Everyone loved him; he was joyous to them, and yet he carried no joy in his own heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him out of the river’s water, twinkled to him from the stars of the night, melted out of the sunbeams. Dreams and anxiety came billowing out of the sacrificial smoke, whispering from the verses of the Rig-Veda or trickling out of the old Brahmin’s teachings.

Siddhartha had started to cultivate the seed of discontent within himself. He had started to feel like his father’s love, his mother’s love, and the love of his friend Govinda wouldn’t make him happy forever, wouldn’t bring him peace, satisfy him, and be sufficient for all time. He had started to suspect that his illustrious father, his other teachers, and the wise Brahmins had shared the majority and the best of their wisdom with him, that they had already poured their all into his ready vessel without filling the vessel: the mind wasn’t satisfied, the soul wasn’t quiet, the heart wasn’t stilled. The purifications were nice, but they were just water, and didn’t wash away sins; they didn’t cure the mental thirst or allay his heart’s anxiety. Sacrifices and invocations to the gods were superb—but were they sufficient? Did the sacrifices bring happiness? And what about all those gods? Was Prajapati really the one who had created the world? Wasn’t it Atman, he who was the Only One, the All-One? Weren’t the gods creatures, created just like you and I were: subject to time and transitory? Was it even good, was it right, did it make sense or was it important to sacrifice, to the gods? To whom else would one sacrifice to whom else should one bring worship other than Him, the Only, the Atman? And where could Atman be found, where did he live, where did his eternal heart beat—where else other than in the self, in one’s inner being, in the indestructible part of each person that they carried within themselves? But where was this self, where was this inner being, this most paramount thing? It was not made of flesh or the legs that carried it, it wasn’t just the thoughts or the awareness—or so taught the wisest men. Where then was it? One had to penetrate that far into the self, into myself, into the Atman—was there some other way, however,