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Siddhartha

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As a young man, Siddhartha tells his father that he wants to go live among the samanas (wandering ascetics) to learn from them. His father objects, but Siddhartha refuses to move from the spot he is standing on until his father allows him to go or he dies (whichever comes first). With a sad heart, his father, seeing Siddhartha's determination, allows him to go. Siddhartha's friend and "disciple", Govinda, follows him to live with the samanas in the forest, fasting or begging for alms from the people. From the samanas, Siddhartha learns how to empty himself of worldly desires and to lose himself to become one with the world around him. However, this does not satisfy him.

When the Buddha comes to their area, Govinda convinces Siddhartha to go hear what he has to say. Although, the Buddha speaks truth, Siddhartha says, "'But one thing this doctrine, so clear, so venerable, does not contain: it does not contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands.'" Siddhartha says that "'This is why I am continuing my wanderings -- not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all teachings & all teachers, and either to attain my goal alone or to die.'"

Govinda stays to become a disciple of the Buddha while Siddhartha sets out to attain enlightenment on his own terms. Finally, he comes to the realization that he has spent his life trying to escape the world and himself. Now, he seeks to find himself. He says, "'I shall no longer be instructed by the YOGA VEDA or the ATHARVA VEDA, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.'" At this point "[h]e look[s] around as if he [is] seeing the world for the first time." And, although, he leaves all formal teachings & teachers behind, the people and experiences he encounters on his journey through life continue to teach him.

The story of Siddhartha is the story that many of us live. We follow after various teachings and doctrines. And, eventually, we open our mind to "see the world for the first time" through our own eyes. I could relate to Siddhartha's spiritual journey up to a certain point; this could be the story of my own spiritual journey. But I'd like to read it again and again as the years progress to see just how much more of it I'm able to relate to as I mature. So much of it seems to be the type of wisdom I'll have to learn for myself and can't quite yet absorb. As the aging Siddhartha says upon becoming reacquainted with Govinda, "'Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness.'"

When I was about to start college, a friend who had just finished his freshman year came home for the summer raving about Hermann Hesse. I had not heard of Hesse but, I later learned that he was a writer who was particularly relevent to college students of that era who were questioning the status quo and seeking spiritual growth.

On my friend's recommendation, I read Siddhartha. In my recent re-reading of this 20th century classic, I read this edition which is a new translation. Since my memories of 35 years ago are dim, I have no basis to compare the translation with earlier ones but, I will say that this edition was readable and poetically written.

Siddhartha is a Brahmin youth who has a close friend in Govinda. Upon Siddartha's urging, the two leave their families and comfortable surroundings in a search for spirituality. They join a group of ascetics and numb themselves to the world around them. Siddhatha is seeking to subjugate his ego. After years of this existence, they go to hear the Buddah speak. Govinda becomes a follower but, Siddhartha believes that he has to discover truth for himself and that as great as the Buddah's teachings are, he must nonetheless strike out on his own.

He goes from his ascetic lifestyle to an oppulent one in which he enjoys pleasures of the flesh. But even then, he ultimately feels the need to move on in his spiritual journey. He joins a ferryman along the river and becomes the ferryman's assistant. He lives in the ferryman's hut and discovers that he can learn much by listening to the river talk. He also discovers that he has a son who he happens upon. However, just as Siddhartha left his father, his own son does not remain with him. His son leaves for a very different reason, however. Siddartha's son had been raised in the opulent style that Siddartha had abandoned and rather than seeking spirituality, the son is seeking to maintain his comfortable lifestyle.

In this novel, Siddhartha goes from a very young man to an old man. His journey to discover truth is a lifelong one and the stages he goes through ultimately leads to inner peace. This is a book to be read carefully and savored. Of course, it's a translation, not the original German but, assuming a faithful translation, the words are to be carefully considered. Perhaps the stages in Siddhartha's life mirror the stages in our own as we seek spiritual growth.

I admit that it has been several years since I read this book. I also admit that as it is one of my favorite novels I am not an unbiased source (but who is). With that grain of salt having been swallowed this book is foremost a tale about the birth of a new kind of spirituality. Siddhartha is about the process experienced on the road to enlightenment. I feel that some other reviewers who were perhaps not at the right point in their lives to appreciate that this is a story of the process rather than a how to. It is not a self help book or a short-cut guide to enlightenment. The novel tells with simple prose which is different from any of Hesse's other work in its simplicity. It tells of the human frailty and failings of a being that leads to the discovery of the Buddhist philosophy. The story pushes for you to think about what Siddhartha discovers, especially in the scene by the river, and to understand how this revelation relates to your world view. I found this book at a time in my life when I needed to, and I hope it finds you at the right point in your life as well. The fewer expectations you have the better. A very short novel, nothing more. If you have ever been curious to know more about Buddhist thought this book encapsulates the most intrinsic tenets of the religion. I hope you experience this book. It is just a story, don't miss the forrest for the trees. I hope any of this helps you to chose to read or to know it is not for you.

I won't write much on the novel. It is obviously a classic piece of literature dealing with spiritual evolution. I do want to say that the Shambala Library hardcover edition (translated by Chodzin Kohn) is a really nice printing (complete with integral chapter mark) if you care about the look of your books.

Also, the translator's preface contains a great quote, written by Hesse around 1920, the message of which is so current it could easily have been written last year or last month.

Buy it.

The story seems simple on the surface. I believe it depicts an ambivalent attitude about Buddhism, and favors a Taoist way of harmony. Siddhartha's rejection of dogma or teaching is pure Taoism. But at the same time Hesse shows that inflation and gratifacation of the ego with pleasure, wealth, etc. is also problematic. The most memorable line is "the opposite of a truth is also true. A truth cloaked in words is only one sided." Paradox, the insistence on the present, the belief that wisdom can only be lived but not expressed in words or taught, the unity of samsara and nirvana is entirely consistent with Taoism or Zen and not Buddhism per se. Seek without seeking might be the message of the story. This is only my interpretation and might not be entirely true. Decide for yourself.

The first time i read siddartha i thought to myself , "how do i acquire such tranquility of mind, and soul?" I have studied martial arts most of my life and i have been in the ring many times before, even though there is a great deal of discipline that is acquired along with the teaching of the martial arts, one also acquires a sense of instinct, and instinct drives even the most disciplined martial artist to act brash and hot tempered, and through my hot bloodedness i found this book. It is strange to think that such a simple act as reading the pages off of a book can instill such a serene sense in a person. When ever i read this book no matter how angry i'am at the time, i can't help but smile peacefully at the perplexeties of everyday life and the meaningless of anger and agitation, this book truly is a spiritual journey all of its own. This novel contains, what is in my opiinion, one of the most profound messeges ever written, and that messege is that no life style is wrong or right, it is the beauty of the buhddist teaching, it does not discriminate nor show contempt, for your life style, no matter how vague, or exciting, or misled, is not an evil but a step towards knowledge and spiritual enlightment, every action in your life shaping the kind of person your going to become and some how shaping the people around you as well. The path to true enlightment isn't leading the perfect life, its making mistakes, being human, and learning from ones transgressions. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever fealt the call of the self, the yearning of the spirit, and the release of the mind.

This 1922 novella is often mistaken for a biography of the Buddha. The story is set in India in the Buddha's time, the central character shares the Buddha's birth name, and in the end a similar experience of awakening. Hesse's Siddhartha, though, follows a slightly different path.

Both begin princes who renounce their inheritance for the life of a wandering ascetic. Both go on to practice yogic austerities to create altered states of consciousness, states that because of their temporary nature prove ultimately unsatisfying. At this point, the historical Siddhartha left his teachers and developed his own way to enlightenment. Hesse's Siddhartha, though, decides to learn something about the sensual world and begins by courting the lovely Kamala, who may be based on Ambapali, a courtesan from Buddhist scriptures who donates a park to the Buddha's monks. In Hesse's novel, Kamala leads Siddhartha into the world of sex, love, commerce, drink, and gambling, where he stays for many years until at last he begins to sicken of this life, experiencing a crisis that brings him close to death - and sets him back on the road to enlightenment.

In the end Siddhartha realizes that while his decision to go out seeking himself was unavoidable, so too was his suffering. That the life he lived could not have been any different, that his path to enlightenment required he live exactly the life he had lived - good, bad, and wretched. As he tells his friend Govinda many years later:

"I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it."

The old Siddhartha settles next to a river, becoming a ferryman, the metaphorical Buddha carrying people from one side of life to the other. In his journeys back and forth listening to the river he realizes at last what he was searching for all these many years.

"Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling, and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life."

I read this book nearly 30 years ago when I was 17. I can't remember what I thought about it then or what I might have got out of it. Now I wonder how someone just starting out on his journey could appreciate Hesse's insight. Perhaps, though, there was then some inkling of its importance. Perhaps that's why I remembered it fondly, which is perhaps what influenced me to pick it up again last month. And for that I am thankful to my younger self, the one who had to travel much the same road as Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.

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As I read this book, (it took me about an hour and a half,) I kept thinking about how similar it is to THE ALCHEMIST by Paolo Coehlo. Lots of the same messages: follow your heart, seek enlightenment, be yourself, learn about love, among others. The reason I like this book better is simple. It came out first. I'd venture to say it was some kind of inspiration for THE ALCHEMIST. This book leaves a wonderful taste in your mouth, and is a must read for anyone who may feel lost or out of touch with themselves. I loved it.

This was a trendy book when I read it as a teenager in the 1970s, Eastern religions being in fashion at the time. When I picked this up again I was surprised to learn that Hesse had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. But having re-read this book, I can appreciate it as a masterpiece and do not begrudge Hesse his prize.

The book is essentially a biblical-style parable of the life of Siddhartha, who lives at the time of Buddha and who in fact represents Buddhist philosophy while at the same time criticizing any didactic teachings or following of great teachers. Siddhartha is the son of a Brahmin who rebels, becomes an ascetic, meets the Buddha, rejects the Buddha in favor of seeking experience, becomes a merchant, and then rejects material things in the latter stages of his life.

Siddhartha learns to love things as opposed to words/ideas, to appreciate the unity of all things and the unreality of time, and to love all things (which may set him apart from the Buddha's orthodoxy).

What is striking about the book is Siddhartha's suspicion of all things written and of ideas. Such abstractions are inherently one-sided and cannot capture the more subtle truths of the connectedness and goodness of all things. This poses a great challenge for the writer -- who is, after all, writing a one-sided text conveying ideas and knowledge. Yet, it is experience and things that Siddhartha loves.

For this reason, Hesse writes with a biblical style. The book is a short parable of the entire life of a man. There is no lengthy dialogue or elaborate scenes. And the style is poetic. In this way the text avoids being one-sided or didatic and instead becomes a living thing for the reader to ponder and interpret and revisit from time to time, like one would do with scripture.

The reader of the audio version is first rate in conveying the poetry of the book, and he uses a new translation that has been well-received.

Given the harm done by one-sided ideas during the Twentieth Century, and the angry polemics of contemporary culture wars, Siddhartha's parable has great and timely appeal. We should allow ourselves to learn more through the simple experience of living life and not be so distracted by ideas and knowledge. In the end, happiness does appear to lie is appreciating the goodness, inevitability, and connectedness of everything and to realize, as does Siddhartha at the end of the book, that the river is laughing at us.

This is the second time I'm reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha in a new translation by Sherab Chodzin Kohn. The first is translated by Hilder Rosner. I believe the translator is a practicing Buddhist. Inevitably, his version is tinged with a stronger Buddhist flavour than the original translation. Nonetheless, the lyricism of the prose is retained, and I find it no less poetic.

Siddharta's intellectual pride makes him reject all teachings, including the Buddha's, to seek his own path. That path leads him to samsara, to material greed and desires of the flesh. And when he thinks he has found the one true path at the river, his former lover brings him a son, and he has to go through the pain of severing that final manifestation of ego all over again. All these, Hesse concludes, are part of the lessons that the seeker has to experience in order to find the truth - a truth that is beyond words, beyond the duality that hides behind words.

This time round, I'm also more profoundly affected by the different characters in the book, and the human bonds that tie them to Siddhartha. Each of them stands for a human condition, and yet Hesse, with great economy of skill, is able to make them fully fleshed-out characters.

Govinda, in particular, strikes me as a most moving character. He's not too bright, this Govinda, but he's earnest, loyal, and sincere. The two times that he meets Siddhartha along the river are the most touching episodes in the book. It's telling that Siddhartha reveals the summation of his long spiritual search to Govinda in the final chapter. Two old men, once the closest of friends, sit beside a river under the setting sun, discussing the ultimate truth of life. It is the calmest of images, but the questions asked and the answers given vibrate with cosmic significance.

Read Siddhartha for an immensely poetic rendition of the spiritual search into the true meaning of life.