Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and ‘The Ancient

HERMANN HESSE’S SIDDHARTHA AND
THE ANCIENT INDIAN WAY OF LIFE

Siddhartha asserts once again, the ancient Indian way of life, that a man must travel only on the High-way of ‘Life’ and not search for by-lanes, to reach The Eternal, The Brahman. To ‘Empty Oneself’ one must be ‘complete’ ­that seems to be the essence of the novel ‘Siddhartha’. In a quest for truth, there are no short cuts as is shown in the life of the protagonist Siddhartha. He passes through the four ashramas of life, prescribed by Hindu Scriptures; Brahmacharya (Student-ship), Garhastya or Sansara (Household Life) Vanaprastha (retirement to the Forest) and Sanyasa (Fulfilment) and attains what his name means; Siddhartha, One whose aim has been accomplished.

To reach that state he faced many ordeals, tried many experiments, even picked up an argument with the Enlightened soul ‘Buddha’ and by experience he could quench his quest.

The novel opens with the First stage of Hindu Life: Brahmacharya. Siddhartha, darling of pious Brahmin parents, is well versed in all scriptures and rituals.

“He had already long taken part in the learned men’s conversations, had engaged in debate with Govinda and had practised the art of contemplation and meditation with him ¹”.

But Siddhartha himself is not happy with the knowledge he acquired.

“………the Brahmins, had already passed on to him the bulk and best of their wisdom, that they had already poured the sum total of their knowledge into his waiting vessel; and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still. The ablutions were good, but they were water²”.

All the rituals seemed, to put them in T. S. Eliot’s lines in ‘Waste Land’.

“……empty cisterns and exhausted wells” to him.

The futility of rites - Karmakanda, Vedas and Scriptures, for a man who is in serious quest, is well portrayed in Bhagavad Gita.

Yavan artha udapane
Sarvatah samplutodake
tavan saruesu vedusu
brahmanasya vijanatah

As is the use of a pond in place flooded with water everywhere, so is that of all the vedas for the Brahmin, who understands. (II-119). “Just as one who gets water from the river does not attach importance to a well so the wise do not attach any importance to ritual action”. For those of illumed consciousness, ritual observances are of little value. “nate (jnaninah) karma prasamsanti kupam nadyam pibanniva⁴”.

Mahabharata: Santiparva, 240, 10.

So leaving aside the scriptures and rites he now wants to find the Eternal and dwell in that consciousness and listen to the never - ending divine music-akhanda anand dhtvani. But where was it to be found? Nobody showed the way. Nobody knew it. But he must find it. The eternal thirst must be quenched. But how?

He decides to join the samanas wandering, solitary, strange and hostile naked ascetics. Abstracting permission from his reluctant parents he joins the samanas with his friend and follower Govinda.

“Siddhartha had one single goal - to become empty, of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow - to let the self die⁵”.

So with monastic austerity he becomes one with the naked samanas.

“Nails grew long on his thin fingers and a dry gristly beard appeared on his chin. His glance became icy when he encountered women, his lips curled with contempt when he passed through a town of well-dressed people. He saw businessmen trading, princes going to the hunt, mourners weeping over their dead, prostitutes offering themselves, doctors attending the sick, priests deciding the day for vowing, lovers making love, mothers soothing their children - and all were not worth a passing glance, everything lied, stank of lies, they were all illusions of sense, happiness and beauty ⁶”.

From the samanas, Siddhartha and Govinda learnt to take ‘heron into his soul, to slip into a dead jackal and experienced their cravings for food and sex. He learned many ways of losing self. He killed his senses.

“He lost his self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non­ being. But the paths took him away’ from self, in the end they always led to it”⁷.

The by-lane he followed proved to be an unending alley. To quote Amiya Bhushan Sharma.

“Sidhartha felt that all his spiritual exercises that he learnt from the samanas gave him only momentary satisfaction, akin to those gained by the worldly people at toddy shops and brothels” ⁸.

So Siddhartha decided to leave the path of samanas. Siddhartha and Govinda, in their wanderings, came to know that Gautama Buddha is camping in the Jetavans Grove near the town Savathi. Siddhartha, unlike Govind is not interested in his teachings, but in the very personality of Buddha. At the very first sight he could understand that Buddha is truly a holy man. And never in his life he esteemed a man so much. But Siddhartha could, not accept the teachings. He is already fed up with teachings. He wants to experience what Buddha experienced at the time of enlightenment. Buddha’s teachings, he believed” will teach, “…….how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain, it does not contain the secret of what the illustrious one himself experienced - he alone among hundreds of thousands”.

Here is one among many reasons to show why Buddhism as a religion could not gain ground in the land it was born. Indians from times immemorial, as a rule, look towards salvation. Any work they do in this mundane world some how or other is linked to - Moksha. Right from the rites performed for the salvation of the ancestors to the rites performed in marriage ceremonies, all are linked to that one word Moksha. But Buddha to put it in Dr. D. Anjaneyulu’s words.

“Presented the, ethical way to the masses, without bothering, himself about the metaphysical subtleties”. He further says “It might be pertinent to remember that Buddha did not find a new religion, at least he was not aware of it: he would be called a Social reformer, to start with, as he sought to purify the individual and improve society”. He quotes RhysDavids “Gautama was born and brought up and lived and died a Hindu” ¹⁰.

Amiya Bhushan Sarma argues in the same vein, “The Buddha was an awakened soul. He had seen the falsity of many an illusion. Such knowledge, as he had, was incommunicable. Everyone had to undergo the journey through ‘reality’ to reach ‘the shady city of palm trees’¹¹.

Siddhartha argues with Buddha, in the novel, on these lines over which Buddha expresses complete equanimity and blesses Siddhartha, but not without a warning “Be on your gaurd against too much cleverness”. Govinda joins the monk order of Buddha.

After this Siddhartha falls into trance and slowly arising from that trance he looks around the world and finds it beautiful. He recognized that in search of Atman he was fleeing from himself.

“He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbow, rocks, weeds, flowers……”¹²

That night he had a dream of kissing a woman’s breast and tasting the milk.

“It tasted of woman and man, of sun and forest, of animal and flower of every fruit of every pleasure” ¹³.

Next day he crosses the river with the help of the ‘Ferry man Vasudeva’ and reaches a grove where he saw Kamala the courtesan.

From here he enters the next stage of Hindu life Garhastya-or-­sansara. At the first sight, he understood that Kamala is the woman who could teach him what he lacks, the art of love. Like a stone thrown into still water he finds his quickest way into the worldly life. He conducts his employer, Kamaswami’s business with detachment. But, “Kamaswami conducted his business with care and often with passion, but Siddhartha regarded it all as a game, the rules of which he endeavoured to learn well; but which did not stir his heart” ¹⁴.

Siddhartha remained a samana in heart for a long time and learnt the art of love from Kamala. But what was in the beginning a game has now gradually become a passion. He tasted riches, passion and power.

“The holy fountain head which had once been near and which had once sung loudly within him, now murmured softly in the distance” ¹⁵.

The world has caught him. His senses became more awakened. The soul sickness of the rich crept over him. Years rolled by and Siddhartha was unmindful of them. He entered his forties. One day after making love with Kamala he noticed on her face, near the corners, fine wrinkles, a sign which gave a reminder of autumn and old age. That night he had a dream in which the pet bird of Kamala died. Stirred with this, Siddhartha ruminated over his past, understood that he was caught in the life cycle like any other human being. The same night Sidhartha left the town and never returned.

Then he enters the next stage of his life Vanaprastha (retirement to the forest). Vanaprastha is 1ike an anteroom before one enters the main chamber of Sanyasa. Here one must lead a secluded life and undergo training, purgate all the emotions, passions, bonds and snap the last ties. Siddhartha,    sick of sansara, now reached the river that he crossed with the help of the ferryman, when he entered sansara. At the moment, when he contemplated suicide, came from a remote part of his soul, the one word, the one syllable OM. Then he fell into a sleep, deep and dreamless. When he awoke, it seemed to him as if ten years had passed. The dream, that was sansara has now faded; he was free like a child. He decided to settle down near the river with the ferryman ‘Vasudeva’ and listen to the secrets of the river. Years passed. They were now two friendly old ferrymen listening silently to the river.

For Siddhartha the last purgation is yet to happen. He received his child from Kamala who was, on her way to see the dying Buddha, bitten by a snake and was in her last hours of life. He built a funeral pyre and performed the last rites. He took under his care, the child, a spoilt mother’s boy. Siddhartha with great patience and perseverance attended on the boy hoping to win him over, the arrogant and defiant boy had scant respect for the old friends.

“But he (Siddhartha) loved him and preferred the sorrow and trouble of his love rather than happiness and pleasure without the boy” ¹⁶.

Vasudeva advised him against keeping the boy. “Do you not compel this arrogant spoilt boy to live in a hut with two old banana eaters, to whom even rice is a dainty, whose thought cannot be the same as his; whose hearts are old and quiet and beat differently from his.”? ¹⁷.

But Siddhartha felt that this love was not worthless, that it was necessary.

“It came from his own nature. This emotion, this pain these follies also had to be experienced” ¹⁸.

One day the boy ran away to the town never to return. Vasudeva tried in vain to console Siddhartha. But Siddhartha searched for the boy till he reached the outskirts of the town when he realized painfully:

“That the desire that had driven him to this place was foolish, that he could not help his son, that he should not force himself on him” ¹⁹.

The wound smarted for a long time. But this experience made people no longer alien to him when he worked as a ferryman.

“Their vanities, desires, and trivialities no longer seemed absurd to him. They had become understandable, lovable and even worthy of respect”²⁰.

All this experience prepared the ground in his heart. He is now becoming a ‘Paripoorna’.

“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” ²¹.

But somewhere in the dark recess of his heart the wound smarted. So he decided to confess to Vasudeva who knew the art of listening.

“Disclosing his wound to his listener was the same as bathing it in the river, until it became cool and one with the river. As he went on talking and confessing, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a man who was listening to him. He felt that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession as a tree absorbs the rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God Himself, that he was eternity itself” ²².

This scene makes one remember Arjuna’s enlightenment in the eleventh chapter of Bhagavad Gita. Vasudeva was Krishna himself listening with a radiant smile Siddhartha’s confession. When self-realization dawned on Siddhartha, Vasudeva took his leave.

“I am going into the woods. I am going into the unity of all things, said Vasudeva, radiant” ²³.

Now the most important stage in the ancient Indian way of life - Sanyasa - Moksha or Salvation. After Vasudeva, Siddhartha took over the role of ferryman. Govinda, the Buddhist monk was wandering and still seeking Salvation, heard about an old, wise ferryman. He wanted to hear from the old ferryman his doctrine.

Siddhartha then tells him that wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish. If wisdom is ‘Swadharma’ when, communicated it will be ‘Paradharma’ which is ‘Bhayavah’. One can experience wisdom but not communicate. That Siddhartha did in his life.

“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 depth 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” ²⁴.

Govinda hears his friend in bewilderment. He realizes that Siddhartha had become enlightened. He is now a ‘Sthithaprajna’, above good and evil, untouched by sin and as a lotus leaf (is untouched) by water. A sloka from chapter-V of Bhagavad Gita cannot be out of place to show the position of Siddhartha.

brahmany adhaya karmani
sangam tyaktva karoti yah
lipyate na sa papena
padmapattram iva mbhasa

“He who works, having given up attachment, resigning his actions to God, is not touched by sin, even as a lotus leaf (is untouched) by water” ²⁵.

Govinda is now helped by his friend Siddhartha, the one whose aim is achieved, in his self-realization. “Bend near to me! he whispered in Govinda’s ear. Come still nearer, quite close! Kiss me on the forehead, Govinda” ²⁶.

Then Govinda no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. He saw in Siddhartha what Arjuna saw in the ‘Viswaroopa’ as Krishna in the eleventh chapter of Bagavad Gita.

“He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces…..He saw the heads of animals, boars, crocodiles, elephants, oxen, birds. He saw Krishna and Agni” ²⁷.

Siddhartha is now ‘Paripoorna’. He achieved his goal by passing through the four ashramas of the ancient Indian way of life. These four stages are like purgatorial fires burning out lust, desire for wealth, filial bond etc. They are the ‘Moksha Marga’. One must strive through them but not be simply caught in them like the Kamaswamis of the world. Even Gautama Buddha had undergone all these stages. There are striking similarities in the lives of Siddhartha and Buddha. (Siddhartha is the name of Gauthama Buddha).

It is better to end in the words of Amiya Bushan Sharma “Nothing, save Savitri, was written in this century which expresses the soul of India so well” ²⁸.

REFERENCES

¹ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha Macmillan India (Pub. 1973) P. 3.
² Siddhartha - P.5.
³ T.S. Eliot - the Waste Land - Ed. Vasanth A. Sahane Oxford University Press - 1987 Line 384 P.88.
⁴ The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by S. Radha Krishnan, Oxford University press - 1989 Chapter­ II Samkhya Theory and Yoga Practice sloka 46, P.119.
⁵ Siddhartha - P .12.
⁶ Siddhartha - P. 1l.
⁷ Siddhartha - P.13.
⁸ India and World Literature, Edited by Abaai Maurya, Published by Indian Council for Cultural Relations - 1990. Hermann Hesse S. Siddhartha and the Ancient Indian Philosophical Tradition ­Amiya Bhushan Sharma P.339­-340.
⁹ Siddhartha - P. 28.
¹⁰ Triveni - Vol.63 - July-Setpember (1994) Commemoration issue on Buddha - Dr. D. Anjaneyulu - ­Gautama The Buddha - The man and his message.
¹¹ India and World Literature - P. 335.
¹² Siddhartha - P. 37.
¹³ Siddhartha - P. 39.
¹⁴ Siddhartha - P. 53.
¹⁵ Siddhartha - P. 61.
¹⁶ Siddhartha - P. 94.
¹⁷ Siddhartha - P. 95.
¹⁸ Siddhartha - P. 97.
¹⁹ Siddhartha - P. 100.
²⁰ Siddhartha – P. 102.
²¹ Siddhartha - P. 103.
²² Siddhartha - P. 105.
²³ Siddhartha - P. 108.
²⁴ Siddhartha - P. 113.
²⁵ Bhagavad Gita - Radha Krishnan, Cp. V. P. 178.
²⁶ Siddhartha - P. 117.
²⁷ Siddhartha - P. 118.
²⁸ India and World Literature P. 343.