Hesse was deeply influenced by his grandfather, a renowned Indologist, and his own extensive studies of Indian philosophy. However, Siddhartha was not intended to be a doctrinal Buddhist text. In fact, Hesse had a complex relationship with institutional religion. While the novel is set in ancient India and features the historical Buddha (referred to as Gotama), Hesse was writing a distinctly Western existentialist story wrapped in Eastern clothing.
The river speaks. Are you listening?
Siddhartha, the intelligent son of a Brahmin who seeks ultimate truth beyond traditional doctrine. Plot Summary
“When someone seeks, then it easily happens that his eye sees only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to let nothing enter into him.”
The novel opens with Siddhartha, a handsome and learned Brahmin’s son who has mastered all the rituals and philosophies of his caste. He chants the Om, performs ablutions, and yet, he is not happy. He feels a void. “The wound,” Hesse writes, “was not the source of his discontent; the fact that he had not found the ‘Self’ within himself was.”
Hermann Hesse ended the novel with a profound, simple image: Govinda bowing before his friend, seeing the unity of all existence in a single smile. The final line reads: “His wound blossomed, his sorrows shone, his Self had flowed into the unity.”
In his rebellion against his father, Siddhartha joins the Samanas, wandering ascetics who practice extreme self-denial. Accompanied by his loyal friend Govinda, Siddhartha learns to fast, to wait, and to think. He attempts to kill his senses to escape the cycle of suffering.