Siddhartha Read online

  As Govinda was thinking these things, his heart filled with conflict. He bent over once more to Siddhartha, drawn by love, and bowed deeply before the one sitting quietly beside him.

  "Siddhartha," he said, "we have become old men. It is unlikely that either of us will ever see the other again in this shape. I can see, beloved friend, that you have found peace. I confess that I myself have not done so. Grant me just one word more, O Revered One; give me something that I can grasp, that I can comprehend! Give me something to take with me when we part. My path is often difficult, Siddhartha, often dark."

  Siddhartha remained silent and continued to gaze at him with the same still smile. Govinda stared into his face with fear, with longing. Suffering and eternal searching stood written in his gaze, eternal not-finding.

  Siddhartha saw this and smiled.

  "Bend down to me," he whispered softly in Govinda's ear. "Bend down here to me! Yes, like that, closer! Even closer! Kiss me on the forehead, Govinda!"

  When Govinda, perplexed and yet drawn by great love and foreboding, obeyed his words, bent down close to him, and touched his forehead with his lips, something wondrous happened to him. While his thoughts were still lingering over Siddhartha's odd words, while he was still fruitlessly and reluctantly attempting to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while a certain contempt for his friend's words was even then battling inside him with tremendous love and reverence, this happened:

  He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha; instead he saw other faces, many of them, a long series, a flowing river of faces, by the hundreds, by the thousands, all of them coming and fading away, and yet all of them appearing to be there at once, all of them constantly changing, being renewed, and all of them at the same time Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, its mouth wrenched open in infinite pain, a dying fish with dying eyes--he saw the face of a newborn child, red and full of wrinkles, all twisted up to cry--he saw the face of a murderer, saw him stick a knife into a person's body, and saw, at the same instant, this criminal kneeling down in chains and having his head chopped off by an executioner with one stroke of the sword--he saw the bodies of men and women naked in the positions and struggles of furious love--he saw corpses laid out, still, cold, empty--he saw the heads of animals: wild boars, crocodiles, elephants, bulls, birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all these figures and faces in their thousandfold interrelations, each helping the others, loving them, hating them, destroying them, giving birth to them anew; each one was a wanting-to-die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died; each of them was only transformed, constantly born anew, constantly being given a new face, without time having passed between one face and the next--and all these figures and faces rested, flowed, engendered one another, floated off and streamed into and through one another, and constantly stretched over all of them was something thin, an insubstantial but nonetheless existing thing like thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a bowl or shape or mask made of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, at just this moment was touching with his lips. And Govinda saw that this smiling of the mask, this smile of Oneness over all the flowing figures, this smile of simultaneousness over the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely the same still, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps kind, perhaps mocking, wise, thousandfold smile of Gautama, the Buddha, as he himself had seen it a hundred times with awe. This, Govinda knew, is how the Perfect Ones smiled.

  No longer knowing whether time existed, whether this looking had lasted a second or a hundred years, no longer knowing whether there was a Siddhartha, whether a Gautama, whether a Self, an I and You, wounded in his innermost core as if by a divine arrow whose wound tastes sweet, entranced and bewildered in his innermost core, Govinda remained standing there a short while longer, bending over Siddhartha's still face that he had just kissed, that had just been the site of all shapes, all Becoming, all Being. This countenance appeared unchanged once the depths of the thousandfold immensity had closed again beneath its surface; he was silently smiling, smiling quietly and gently, very kindly perhaps, perhaps mockingly, precisely as he had smiled, the Sublime One.

  Deeply Govinda bowed, tears of which he knew nothing coursed down his old face, and like a fire the feeling of the most ardent love, the most humble reverence was burning in his heart. Deeply he bowed, bowed to the very earth, before the one sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in all his life, everything that had ever, in all his life, been dear to him and holy.

  GLOSSARY OF SANSKRIT TERMS, DEITIES, PERSONS, PLACES, AND THINGS*

  Agni * Hindu fire deity, the divine personification of the fire of sacrifice.

  Atharva-Veda * see Vedas.

  Atman * The Reality that is the substrate of the individual and identical with the Absolute (Brahman); the ultimate essence of the universe; the vital breath in human beings.

  banyan * East Indian tree (Ficus benghalensis), the branches of which send out numerous trunks that grow down to the soil so that a single tree covers a large area.

  bo tree * According to Buddhist tradition, the pipal (Ficus religiosa) under which the Buddha sat when he attained Enlightenment.

  Brahman * Impersonal spirit, the Absolute, the Eternal; the Universal essence from which all created things emanate.

  Brahmin * Member of the highest ranking social class, a class of priests.

  Buddha * "One who has awakened" or "the one who has understood;" an epithet or title rather than a proper name.

  Chandogya Upanishad * see Upanishads.

  eightfold path * This path to ending desire involves: (1) right views, (2) right thoughts, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, (8) right meditation.

  four basic principles * The Buddha's four noble truths are: (1) All life is suffering, (2) Suffering leads to desires, (3) An end to desire brings an end to suffering, (4) The path to ending desire is eightfold.

  Gundert, Wilhelm * This cousin of Hesse's was a student of Japanese religion and philology and later published a number of works on the religious history of Japan and translated the Bi Yan Lu, the central work of Zen Buddhism, into German.

  Krishna * A widely revered and popular Indian deity, son of Vasudeva. One of his aspects is Govinda Krishna, lord of cowherds.

  Lakshmi * Hindu goddess of wealth and good fortune, consort of Vishnu. In one of her incarnations, she bears the name Kamala.

  Magadha * An ancient kingdom of India, situated in what is now west-central Bihar state in northeastern India. Many sites in Magadha were sacred to Buddhism.

  Mara * "Lord of the Senses," a tempter bent on distracting monks and buddhas-to-be during meditation.

  Maya * Principle of appearance; displays the unreal as real; brings about the illusory manifestation of the universe.

  Nirvana * Liberation from passion, suffering, and rebirth; an overcoming of the wheel of birth and death (Sansara).

  Om * In the Upanishads and elsewhere, a mystical word that frequently is made the object of religious meditation. Prayers and chants often begin and end with it.

  pisang fruit * Plantains.

  Prajapati* "Lord of Creatures," creator of the Universe.

  Rig-Veda * see Vedas.

  Rolland, Romain * Hesse greatly admired this French novelist and dramatist who, being a pacifist, donated the proceeds from his 1915 Nobel Prize to the Red Cross and later wrote a biography of Mahatma Gandhi.

  Sakyamuni * "Sage of the Sakya clan," a designation for the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama.

  sal * an East Indian timber tree (Shorea robusta).

  Samadhi * Perfect one-pointedness of mind; absorption; the serene, unifying concentration achieved in meditation.

  Samana * One of a class of wandering mendicant ascetics of ancient India.

  Sama-Veda * se
e Vedas.

  Sansara * The wheel of birth and death, cycle of rebirths; empirical existence.

  Satyam * The real, the true; that which abides and exists beyond Maya.

  Savathi * Once the capital of Kosala, the present-day province of Oudh.

  Upanishads * The concluding portion of the Vedas, containing the teachings of the ancient sages; the Upanishads teach that the Self of a human being is the same as Brahman. There are ten main Upanishads, including the Chandogya.

  Vedas * Sacred scriptures of the Hindu tradition, consisting of four books: Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda.

  Vishnu * One of the principal Hindu deities, protector and preserver of the world. Krishna is one of his incarnations.

  Yoga-Veda * "Knowledge about the practices of yoga;" not one of the texts that make up the Vedas.

  *Many of these entries have their source in one or both of the following two works:

  Luis O. Gomez, The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996).

  John Grimes, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  In his Introduction, Tom Robbins says that Siddhartha demonstrates "a hunger for spiritual illumination." What are some examples of other pieces of literature, both classic and contemporary, that share this purpose? In which ways are they similar to Siddhartha? How are they different?

  Why does Siddhartha sometimes refer to himself in the third person and sometimes in the first person? What does this say about how he views himself? Consider in particular his conversation with his father on page 9.

  The spiritual leader who came to be known as Buddha was born with the name of Siddhartha Gautama. Why does Hesse choose to give his character the same name, especially given that Hesse's Siddhartha does not decide to become one of Gautama's disciples? Similarly, why does Hesse refer to the Buddha only as Gautama, and not as Siddhartha Gautama?

  What is the significance of Siddhartha's dream in which Govinda becomes a woman? What does it suggest about their relationship? Does it foreshadow Siddhartha's relationship with Kamala? How are Siddhartha's relationships with Govinda and Kamala different?

  Siddhartha tells Kamala that "Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret" (p. 63). What does he mean by "people of our sort"? Is love why Siddhartha both loathes and envies the child people? Over the course of the novel, Siddhartha explores many kinds of love--platonic, romantic, and parental. How does each affect him differently?

  In his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung writes that "A career, producing of children, are all maya (illusion) compared to that one thing, that your life is meaningful." For much of the novel, Siddhartha seems to embody this philosophy, sacrificing various occupations and relationships in order to seek his own spiritual purpose. But his behavior seems to change profoundly when he discovers that he has a son. Do you think that producing a child is, as Jung claims, an illusion in the face of Siddhartha's greater conquest?

  Siddhartha looks to many people for guidance along his journey--the Brahmins, the Samanas, Gautama, Kamala, and Vasudeva. But in the end, the source that becomes most fruitful is the river. What do you think the river represents? What does Siddhartha mean when he says that his life was a river? What does Vasudeva mean when he tells Siddhartha that there are two kinds of people, one who sees the river as an obstacle and one who does not?

  Though it is Siddhartha who sets out initially on a quest for spiritual enlightenment, several other characters--Govinda, Kamala, and Vasudeva--find their own respective fulfillment as a result of his journey. How, if at all, does this affect Siddhartha's own quest?

  Examine the role that Govinda plays in the novel. Why is it important that he periodically revisits Siddhartha's life?

  Siddhartha oscillates throughout the novel about his feelings toward his teachers and guides. At the end, he tells Govinda, "One can pass on knowledge but not wisdom. One can find wisdom, one can live it, one can be supported by it, one can work wonders with it, but one cannot speak it or teach it" (p. 119). Do you agree with Siddhartha? What is the difference between wisdom and knowledge?

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  SUSAN BERNOFSKY is an acclaimed translator of contemporary and modern German literature. She is a recent recipient of the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, a PEN Translation Fund grant, and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently she is at work on a biography of the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser.

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  Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by Tom Robbins

  Translation, translator's preface, glossary, and

  biographical note copyright (c) 2006 by Random House, Inc.

  Reading group guide copyright (c) 2008 by Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Hesse, Hermann, 1877-1962.

  [Siddhartha, English]

  Siddhartha: an Indian poem/Hermann Hesse; a new translation by

  Susan Bernofsky; introduction by Tom Robbins.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-30742369-6

  I. Bernofsky, Susan. II. Title

  www.modernlibrary.com

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