When New Directions decided to publish the first English translation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in 1951, it could never have foreseen the enormous impact it would have on American culture.
—Paul Morris (p. xiii)
Hinduism has been much misunderstood in the West since it has been introduced in one or another of its exaggerated forms. One image of it is that of the starving sannyasin who by dint of extravagant austerities claims to have realized himself as the soul of the All…The other is that of a religion of unbridled sexuality which the publication of the Kamasutrasas a paperback has done nothing to dispel.
—R.C. Zaehner, Concordant Discord (p. 163)
American witnessed a Hesse phenomenon that was for a European writer.—Paul Morris (p. xv).
There has been and continues to be in our post-Christendom and post-Secular and Scientific Western culture and ethos a perennial spiritual longing and thirst that only deeper waters can quench. The West has a significant contemplative tradition as does the East. Kipling wrongfully suggested that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet”. There have been many creative writers and thinkers in the last few centuries that, in our increasing global village, have sought to discern, how East and West might meaningfully meet—Hermann Hesse is certainly such a guide and mentor, one who in his layered and longer life, sought to bring together the wisdom and contemplative traditions of the West and East: Siddhartha was one of Hesse’s fuller forays into such thoughtful probes.
The sheer carnage and tragedy of WW I, for the more sensitive and thoughtful, raised questions about human suffering on our all too human journey. What does to mean to be human and live an authentic life? What are decisions worth the making, how can we be deflected from making such decisions and is there more to being human than the fleeting ego, throes of matter and projected public personas? It was these sorts of questions that greeted Hesse and begged a response. Hesse’s seeming turn to Buddhism as an initial attempt to face such questions after WW I was not, it should be noted, a scholarly and academic approach to examining the origins and sources of the emergence of Buddhism—Hesse’s interest was much more existential and personal. Hence, the Siddhartha of this short novella of sorts is not the Siddhartha turned Gotama Buddha (the enlightened one) of 1stgeneration Buddhism—it is much more the story of every person who longs to live a more meaningful life (and the hard decisions that point in such a direction).
Siddhartha is divided into two parts, Part One being much shorter than Part Two, although Part One sets the context and stage for Part Two. Hesse began writing Part One shortly after WW I in 1919 and finished the shorter text in 1920—the missive of sorts was published in 1921. Part One contains four compelling chapters: The Brahmin’s Son, With the Shramanas, Gotama and Awakening. The main mythic theme of the deeper life journey are developed in part one—Siddhartha and his friend Govinda are raised with the elite religious leaders of the day, Siddhartha’s father being a Brahman, faithful adherence to the holy texts, rites, rituals and sacred religious forms the mark of a genuine Hindu spiritual leader. And yet, Siddhartha had a deep aching emptiness within that none of the historic and establishment religious forms failed to soothe or transform. The weaning from both his father/mother and his hunger for more than was offered by the Brahmanic tradition and ethos led Siddhartha and Govinda (his faithful friend) to the lean ascetics (With the Shramanas). Would fasting, begging, chanting and hours of meditation still and expose and reveal the ever illusive ego? How could Siddhartha live consistently from the eternal atman within? The external rituals of the Brahmans and the internal demands and disciplines of the Shramanas (Siddhartha and Govinda were with the ascetics for 3 years) still did not clarify for Siddhartha the deeper transformative places he longed to live from. Govinda mentioned to Siddhartha that the Gotama Buddha was an enlightened one they should visit and so they did. Gotama had, obviously, reached a place of deep inner peace and poise—his followers were growing in abundance. Govinda decided to stay with Gotama and his disciples. Siddhartha, after a brief meeting with Gotama, was taken by his obvious integrity of character, but he realized, he would never live from a deeper place by simply becoming an uncritical devotee of Gotama. And, so the journey of awakening began.
Part One ended with Siddhartha knowing what he had to leave behind, knowing what he needed to be free from but unsure of what he was to be free for. Such were Hesse’s conclusions in 1920-1921. Hesse had to go to deeper places in his life journey before the larger and more mature book Siddhartha would be birthed from his soul and creative pen. The quote from Zaehner from which I began this essay speaks much about one notion of Hinduism—“that of the starving sannyasinwho by dint of extravagant austerities claims to have realized himself as the soul of the All”. The fact that the young Siddhartha was the son of a Brahman, joined the ascetic Shramanas and met Gotama the Buddha speaks much about a certain read of Hinduism-Buddhism. But, there is much more to the unfolding journey into releasing the skin encapsulated ego than such an inward spiritual turn—such was the position of awakening that ended Part One of the book. Part Two walks the reader into the much longer and more nuanced journey of the maturing Siddhartha.
Zaehner mentioned that the other distorted and extreme read of Hinduism was “that of a religion of unbridled sexuality which the publication of the Kamasutras as a paperback has done nothing to dispel”. The latter part of Part One and the initiation into Part Two makes the move from a form of spirituality that attempts to transcend matter, history, flux and transience of both nature and human nature and dwell within the eternal atman that is Brahman. Such a move walks the aspirant beyond the temptations of nature, matter, the flesh, sensuality, sexuality, the senses and the lures and baits of the fleeting and transient. This detachment from such deceptive attachments is the mark of the authentic spiritual pilgrim—such is the sannyasin. But, the dilemma is this—Siddhartha was still in the grips and prison of the ego and a certain reactionary dualism that denied matter (in its various forms and guises) as a means of enlightenment.
Hesse lived through a sort of dark night of the soul between Part One and Part Two in which he had to go deeper into his layered and undealt with inner life and emerge with more mature insights—the fact he was a directee of sorts of a Jungian psychologist (later working with Jung himself) meant Hesse had to probe many of the deeper archetypes and myths of the soul in a way he had not substantively done until this season of his unfolding life. Hesse began a return to the novella in 1922 and by October 1922 Siddhartha was complete. What then are the deeper wisdom and insights of Part Two that make this missive such a book of perennial interest?
Part Two walks the reader into the world of time, the senses, physical appetites, life in the world. The young Siddhartha, having shed his ascetic robes, enters the city and meets, Kamala, the alluring and seductive courtesan. Kamala, in time, teaches Siddhartha all the delights and charms of sex (all so abhorrent to the ascetics). Kamala also introduces Siddhartha to the wealthy businessman, Kamaswami. The world of the senses, business, wealth and opulence soon take possession of Siddhartha and he indulges many a desire and longing that would have seemed unthinkable in his former life. But, the deeper Siddhartha delves into such an ethos (and does exceedingly well in it), the more he realizes, he is less and less happy, more and more soul desperate. He has, in short, everything at one level but nothing at a deeper level. He is, in fact, like a dying bird in a cage—such was a dream he had that woke him from his soul dying slumber. The world of the “child people” who only lived for the senses, sensuality, wealth, possessions, property, amusements and a diversity of distractions was the world of samsara, the wheel that goes round and round and never ends. How to get off the wheel of samsara and go to deeper places again became the relentless question of the now aging and forty year old Siddhartha? His was a similar tale to Solomon in Ecclesiastes.Siddhartha had played the illusive game of samsara, done well at it but was now tired of such mirage mongering. It was time to leave the world of the “child people”, their mindless addiction to samsara and enter the third phase of his ever deepening journey—such is the portal into the chapter called “By the River”.
Siddhartha had lived the ascetic and sensualist lives, both forms in which ego holds its way and sway, the water of time washing him and cleansing him, past lives disappearing down the river of time. The ferryman at the river’s edge (Siddhartha had met him before as he crossed over from ascetic to sensualist) greeted him yet again. The image, of course, of crossing over, of leaving the shoreline of one way of life to the shoreline of another is rich with symbol—such was Siddhartha’s next phase of the journey in which he met Vasudeva, the aged and aging ferryman. The deeper lesson Siddhartha was yet to learn was the passage of learning to love, of being attached, of being knit to another, of not being aloof, detached and the perpetual observer—such had been his way as the Brahman’s son, his time with the shramanas and his time with Gotama (and his disciples including Govinda). But, his life with Kamala, Kamaswami and all his earthly successes was also about a sort of game playing, acting a role, still detached and the perennial watcher. Siddhartha was aware “he had been unable to love anything or anybody” (93)—such was his tragic and sad fate. How was he to overcome such a dilemma and narrative? Such were, in some significant ways, Hesse’s questions at this stage of his life. Even though Siddhartha had scorned the “child people” he came to realize he was just a more sophisticated version of them—deception does take many different inner forms, some much more subtle then cruder and more obvious versions and temptations.
There are a few refrains in Siddhartha that recur again and again—there is a listening to the classical inner “daemon”, a heeding and hearing “the bird in your breast”, the “secret voice”, harkening to the child within and learning to be silent and listen, listen and listen yet ever more maturely, authentically and accurately. Such are the more meaningful spiritual disciplines Siddhartha had yet to learn and it was the ferryman, Vasudeva, that would become Siddhartha’s final teacher and mentor. There is a fallacious tendency to think that because Siddhartha is the main actor in the book that Hesse was leaning more in the direction of Buddhism than Hinduism. I don’t think this is the case, though. It is significant to note that both Vasudeva and Govinda (Siddhartha’s teacher as the ferryman and his longtime friend) are both, in their different ways, connected to Krishna (8thavatar of Vishnu). Vasudeva is sometimes viewed as the earthly father of Krishna or identified with Krishna. Govinda has many an affinity of Krishna. Krishna in the Puranas, Gita and Mahabharata is the god of bhakti love, the lover of the loved. There is, in Hesse’s choice of Vasudeva and Govinda, (given their connections to Krishna) a substantive relationship to the lover-loved mystical tradition of India that can be found in a variety of Indian traditions. This is all quite different than the early form of Buddhism of Gotama that factors in Siddhartha.
Who then are Vasudeva and Govinda and why are they so significant in Siddhartha’s maturing and transformation? Vasudeva is very much the elder to the younger and somewhat still confused Siddhartha. Vasudeva has sat by the river, spent years listening to its life giving message, learned to be internally still, centred and at peace. Siddhartha when he has left the city has much in him at war, much needed to confess. Siddhartha has led a life in which he has, essentially, trusted no-one, been close to no-one. He left his father when young, left the ascetics, his friend, Govinda, joined Gotama, his relationship with Kamala and Kamaswami (the former nearer and dearer than the latter) somewhat detached. Vasudeva had the maturity to simply wait and allow Siddhartha to share of his deepest human pain and confess his multiple confusions and inner aloneness—it was like a frozen waterfall thawing then cascading fresh and life giving water. As Siddhartha says about Vasudeva, “Few people know how to listen, and I never met anyone who knows how as well as you. In this, too, I will learn from you” (104).
It is this stance of attentive listening that Vasudeva teaches Siddhartha much about himself and a deep friendship of trust emerges and matures. The two men come to be known as the sages by the river. But, this short season in which Siddhartha seems to have found an inner peace is soon to be challenged. History is to catch up with him.
Gotama is near death and many who have been his disciples and devotees are making their pilgrimages to be with him in his last days. Much to the surprise of Siddhartha, Kamala has left her job as a courtesan, given all her wealth and possessions away and is en route to see the dying Gotama—her son is with her, her son, the child of her final night in bed with Siddhartha. There is a touching scene in which Siddhartha and Kamala momentarily see one another and become one at a longing level, but Kamala has been bitten by a serpent and dies in the arms of Siddhartha. This means that Siddhartha and Vasudeva inherit the petulant and spoiled son of Siddhartha and Kamala. The chapter, “The Son”, takes Siddhartha to places in his life in which his son opposes, defies, rejects and delights in causing great pain to his father. How is Siddhartha to respond to his son? Should he in kindness and gentleness embrace such behavior, hoping in time a change will come? What happens when his son grows more angry and defiant, rude and oppositional? Needless to say, much sadness and grief enters the heart of Siddhartha. Vasudeva suggests to Siddhartha that there comes a time, hard as it is, he must release his son. This is painful for Siddhartha for the simple reason his has slowly learned what it means to love, to be attached, to be knit together with another—in this case his son. And, now the sadness of attachment worked its way out via his final moments of the death of Kamala and his angry and reactionary son. Kamala had once told Siddhartha, “you are incapable of love—he had agreed with her and had compared himself to a star and the child people to falling leaves” (120). Now, he was learning the meaning of listening love and the predictable suffering it caused. Should he be the aloof and cold star again? He had come too far to return to such a place in his soul.
The moment came in which Siddhartha’s son erupted in anger with his father and left the riverside and returned to the city of shallow delights and transient amusements. Siddhartha knew at one level he had to let his son go and yet his emotions spoke a deeper and more demanding message. Siddhartha yet once again revealed his deep soul pain to the ever listening and attentive Vasudeva who understood the layered dilemma. How does one hold together attachment and detachment in a wise and discerning manner? It is much easier to be naively attached or glacial like detached? Siddhartha followed his son to the city but knew he would have to bear the beams of love with no resolution or final happy ending. It was inevitable that Siddhartha would return to the river to be with Vasudeva, Vasudeva ever the attentive listener who heard the deeper message of the river and Siddhartha’s anguish. Siddhartha, like the river and Vasudeva, soon came to see all things in their comings and goings, decisions and consequences, flowing like a river, ever in motion, phases and stages of the life journey, new seasons of life as old are washed away. This was a higher wisdom then the world of Brahmans, ascetics and Gotama—this was a deeper way of seeing and being than the game world of samsara.
The final two chapters in the book, “Om” and “Govinda”, bring the tale of Siddhartha to a close. Vasudeva, in time, knows he must die and die he does. Siddhartha becomes the ferryman who takes, at various levels, literal and spiritual, those who must cross the river, from one shoreline to the next. Some merely see the river as a place to cross as quickly as possible. Others hear the river and know in the crossing much can be heard and seen. The more the destination dominates, the less the ability to see the wisdom of the river crossing process. Govinda, the old friend of Siddhartha, makes a final visit to the river not realizing, in his haste and goal setting ways, his friend was the ferryman. There is final reflection by Siddhartha about seeking, love and listening in the final few pages of the book that Govinda hears but does not hear—he moves on, planning to cross the river, his restlessness unabated, the journey to his friend’s inner peace and stability not understood.
“Love, for me, Govinda, is clearly the main thing” (144). This tends to be Siddhartha’s final summary before an almost transfiguration scene occurs as Siddhartha kisses Govinda on the forehead. The scene illuminates much and draws forth from the depths Govinda’s deeper but oft repressed longings. The final paragraph needs to be quoted in full to get a sense of what Siddhartha had become and what Govinda might yet become.
Govinda bowed low. Tears of which he was unaware ran down his aged face. A feeling of most profound love and most humble veneration burned like a fire in his heart. He bowed low, down to the ground, before the motionless, sitting figure whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, of everything in his life that had ever been worthy and sacred for him.
What is Hesse saying with such a poignant and graphic, raw and tender ending? There are a few things to note by way of conclusion. First, the Siddhartha of the novel is not the Gotama Buddha of Buddhism—Siddhartha comes to his awakening not through some enlightened teacher but through a deeper listening to the inner voice that is affirmed by the unnoticed yet wise ferryman Vasudeva. In short, insight, if ears and soul are attentive, can often be found by some of the most ignored yet thoughtful people rather than charismatic leaders. Vasudeva had lingering time for Siddhartha in a way Gotama Buddha never could or would with his many uncritical devotees. Second, it was not by sacred texts, rituals, asceticism, the play of ideas or indulging shallow appetites that Siddhartha found his way—it was much more through a deeper listening, attentiveness, kindly mentoring, searching inner sensitivity and friendship that Siddhartha learned an inner peace. Third, if love was the final message of the novella, then love is higher than knowledge and wisdom, and love is more about growing in attachment and oneness with others (as painful as this can be a times) than aloofness and detachment—it is also about seeing the transient and passing not as something to be avoided and transcended but as a very icon of seeing deeper. Did Govinda after his seeing who Siddhartha truly was remain with him as Siddhartha learned from the river and Vasudeva? Such an answer is not given us but we do know Hesse has offered in Siddhartha many significant and wise insights into human nature, its distortions and aberrations, its possibilities and the need to discern paths of meaning rather than paths of mismeaning and poor route taking—and yet, much can be learned from questionable paths taken. As Shakespeare noted, “by misdirections we find direction out”.
Hesse had emerged in German literature in the early part of the 20thcentury with the publication of Peter Camenzind (1904). He had published earlier works of poetry, prose and book reviews but by 1904, Hesse was being noticed more and more as a rising literary star. Beneath the Wheel (1906), Gertrud (1910) and Rosshalde (1914) consolidated his reputation as an on the cutting edge German writer and creative thinker. The coming of WWI, though, put Hesse in a precarious place. Hesse was no uncritical fan or booster of German nationalism and the aggressive nature of Germany. The articles he wrote between 1914-1918 that questioned German nationalism meant that many who once cheered him on and were boosters for his literary career began to turn on him seeing him as a traitor to the German people, state and nation. Needless to say, such opposition and marginalization cut deep into Hesse’s soul. The multilayered novel that brought Hesse back to public prominence was Demian(1919). Demian is a rite of passage book for the young Emil Sinclair in which light and darkness, shadows and shade, misreads, wise insights and the notion of ultimate being (the mythic god Abraxis) a mixture of good and evil mix and mingle in the chalice of the book. There can be no doubt in Demian that Hesse is feeling his way along some treacherous and unsure pathways. The publication of Siddharthaneeds to be seen in such a context. There is a simple clarity, rinsed eyes beauty and cleaner road walked in Siddharthathan Demian. Both books need to be read together to get an obvious sense of Hesse’s transition from a rather confused spiritual to a more focused and centred vision of our all too human journey.
The Siddhartha of Siddhartha is the wise sage who, in a servant like manner, ferries one and all across the waters from shorelines of leaving to shorelines of new transitions in life. Siddhartha has lived through much, seen much, suffered much, loved much and from such an immersion in life, he is both kindly, merciful and ever the aging ferryman. The novel does end very much with an individualistic answer to the journey, but many of the more time tried perspectives anticipate Narziss in Naziss and Goldmund, Leo in Journey to the East and Joseph Knecht (Magister Ludi) in Glass Bead Game. Naziss summed up his understanding of the deeper and more substantive life by saying, “The goal is this: always to place myself there where I can best serve…Within that which is best possible to me, I will serve the spirit as I understand it”. The movement from the more individualist oriented spiritual journey to the more communal monastic, larger community of the League in Journey to the East and yet fuller community of the Castalian in The Glass Bead Game highlights an obvious maturation in Hesse’s vision of the more substantive journey. The issue of servanthood and quiet service often underwrites how a community of depth, at the highest life, should co-inhere. Leo, for example, is the oft invisible yet servant like leader of the League (only recognized for who he truly is at the end of the book) just as Joseph Knecht is the Magister and servant like leader of the more sophisticated Castalians. There is, in short, an obvious progression in Hesse’s thinking and life in regards to his idea of the authentic life, servanthood, community and leadership—Siddhartha is but the initial pointer in such a maturing direction.
Hesse, throughout much of his creative and literary life, grappled with the challenges posed by Friedrich Nietzsche and his notion of the ubermensch and new being, Zarathustra being the prototype and model. There is a sense in which Hesse’s Siddhartha, Narziss, Leo and Joseph Knecht are Hesse’s quite different version and vision of the authentic Zarathustrian overcomer, but this is an essay for another time. The dialogue of sorts between Nietzsche and Hesse, Zarathustra and Siddhartha-Narziss-Leo-Knecht is a significant crossroads on the western cultural, intellectual, spiritual and civilizational pathway. Much hinges on what route is chosen and why. I have been fortunate to linger at both Hesse and Nietzsche’s homes in Switzerland and meditated many a decade on their unique challenges. Such, indeed, will be the task of pondering of another paper that will, in time, become part of my newest book, Hermann Hesse: Phoenix Arising.
Siddhartha: translation by Sherab Chodzin Kohn, and introduction by Paul W. Morris—a 2005 Shambhala publication
Ron Dart
Siddhartha: a journey through life I can relate myself to.I am a Christian who has experianced,life,love,rejection,madness,sadness and my own demise,predudice and lack of love.I am a 59 yr old male,single unemployed,seeing a good phychiatrist and jewish female therepest.I have much to learn about ,compasion,love and self control,thank you for this article,Ron,sincerely, john w. barber. still seeking to learn how to love impartially,although i,d love to find a deep friend or soulmate or reliable friends,mayby I have and just don,t know it.I do have audible hallucinations and sometimes visual.
Posted by: john w. barber | September 07, 2019 at 01:22 AM