Part 1

Produced by Michael Pullen, globaltraveler5565@yahoo.com, with the assistance of Stefan Langer, sl99@gmx.de, in scanning the original 1922 edition and Dr. Mary Cicora, mcicora@yahoo.com, with the proofreading of this transcription.

SIDDHARTHA

An Indian Poem

by Hermann Hesse

FIRST PART

Dedicated to the honored friend Romain Rolland

THE SON OF THE BRAHMAN

In the shadow of the house, in the sun of the riverbank by the boats, in the shadow of the sal forest, in the shadow of the fig tree, Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with Govinda, his friend, the Brahman's son. Sun tanned his bright shoulders at the riverbank, during the bath, during the holy washings, during the holy sacrifices. Shadow flowed into his black eyes in the mango grove, during the boys' games, at the song of his mother, at the holy sacrifices, at the teachings of his father, the learned one, at the discourse of the wise. For a long time Siddhartha had taken part in the discourse of the wise, practiced with Govinda in the art of debate, practiced with Govinda in the art of contemplation, in the service of absorption. Already he understood, silently, to speak the Om, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself with the inhalation, to speak it silently out of himself with the exhalation, with gathered soul, his brow surrounded by the radiance of the clear-thinking spirit. Already he understood, within the innermost of his being, to know Atman, indestructible, one with the universe.

Joy sprang in his father's heart over the son, the eager learner, the thirsting for knowledge; he saw a great sage and priest growing up in him, a prince among the Brahmans.

Bliss sprang in his mother's breast when she saw him, when she saw him stride, when she saw him sit down and rise, Siddhartha, the strong, the beautiful, the one walking on slender legs, the one greeting her with perfect decorum.

Love stirred in the hearts of the young Brahman maidens when Siddhartha walked through the streets of the city, with his luminous brow, with the eye of a king, with his narrow hips.

More than all of them, however, Govinda loved him, his friend, the Brahman's son. He loved Siddhartha's eye and sweet voice, he loved his gait and the perfect grace of his movements, he loved everything Siddhartha did and said, and most of all he loved his mind, his lofty, fiery thoughts, his glowing will, his high calling. Govinda knew: this one will not become a common Brahman, no lazy sacrifice-official, no greedy trader in magic spells, no vain, empty speaker, no wicked, treacherous priest, and also no good, dumb sheep in the herd of the many. No, and he too, Govinda, wanted to become none such, no Brahman like there are ten thousand of. He wanted to follow Siddhartha, the beloved, the glorious. And if Siddhartha were someday to become a god, if he were someday to enter into the Radiant Ones, then Govinda wanted to follow him, as his friend, as his companion, as his servant, as his spear-bearer, his shadow.

Thus all loved Siddhartha. He brought joy to all, he was delight to all.

He, however, Siddhartha, brought himself no joy, he was no delight to himself. Walking on the rosy paths of the fig garden, sitting in the bluish shadow of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs in the daily penance bath, sacrificing in the deep-shadowed mango wood, of perfect grace of gesture, loved by all, of all delight, yet he bore no joy in his heart. Dreams came to him and restless thoughts flowed from the water of the river, sparkled from the stars of the night, melted from the rays of the sun; dreams came to him and restlessness of soul, smoked from the sacrifices, breathed from the verses of the Rig-Veda, dripped from the teachings of the old Brahmans.

Siddhartha had begun to nourish dissatisfaction within himself. He had begun to feel that the love of his father, and the love of his mother, and also the love of his friend, Govinda, would not always and for all time make him happy, still him, satiate him, suffice for him. He had begun to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already imparted to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had poured their fullness into his waiting vessel, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart not stilled. The washings were good, but they were water, they did not wash away sin, they did not heal the thirst of the spirit, they did not dissolve the anxiety of the heart. Excellent were the sacrifices and the invocation of the gods—but was this all? Did the sacrifices bring happiness? And how was it with the gods? Was it truly Prajapati who created the world? Was it not Atman, He, the Only One, the All-One? Were not the gods formations, created like you and me, subject to time, perishable? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it a meaningful and highest deed, to sacrifice to the gods? To whom else was one to sacrifice, to whom else was one to offer veneration but to Him, the Only One, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He dwell, where beat His eternal heart, where else but in one's own self, in the innermost, in the indestructible, which each carries within himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost, this ultimate? It was not flesh and bone, it was not thought nor consciousness, thus taught the wisest. Where, where then was it? To penetrate thither, to the self, to me, to Atman—was there another path worth seeking? Ah, and no one showed this path, no one knew it, not the father, not the teachers and wise men, not the holy songs of sacrifice! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had concerned themselves with everything and with more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the orders of the senses, the deeds of the gods—endlessly much they knew—but was it valuable to know all this, if one did not know the One and Only, the most important, the alone important?

Certainly, many verses of the holy books, especially in the Upanishads of the Samaveda, spoke of this innermost and ultimate, magnificent verses. "Thy soul is the whole world," stood written there, and it stood written that man, in sleep, in deep sleep, enters into his innermost and dwells in Atman. Wonderful wisdom stood in these verses, all knowledge of the wisest stood here gathered in magic words, pure as honey gathered by bees. No, not to be despised was the enormous store of knowledge, which lay here collected and preserved by countless successions of wise Brahmans.—But where were the Brahmans, where the priests, where the wise or penitents, to whom it had succeeded to live this deepest knowledge, not merely to know it? Where was the knower who conjured the being-at-home in Atman out of sleep into waking, into life, into step and stride, into word and deed? Siddhartha knew many venerable Brahmans, his father above all, the pure, the learned, the most venerable. His father was to be admired, calm and noble was his bearing, pure his life, wise his word, fine and noble thoughts dwelt in his brow—but even he, who knew so much, did he live in blessedness, had he peace, was he not also only a seeker, a thirster? Must he not, again and again, drink at holy springs, a thirster, at the sacrifice, at the books, at the dialogue of the Brahmans? Why must he, the blameless one, wash away sin every day, strive for purification every day, anew each day? Was not Atman in him, did not the primal source flow in his own heart? Him one must find, the primal source in one's own self, him one must make one's own! Everything else was seeking, was detour, was erring.

Such were Siddhartha's thoughts, this was his thirst, this his suffering.

Often he spoke before himself, from a Chandogya-Upanishad, the words: "Verily, the name of Brahman is Satyam—truly, who knows such, he enters daily into the heavenly world." Often the heavenly world seemed near, but never had he fully reached it, never quenched the final thirst. And of all the wise and wisest whom he knew and whose teaching he enjoyed, of them all there was none who had fully reached the heavenly world, who had fully quenched him, the eternal thirst.

"Govinda," spoke Siddhartha to his friend, "Govinda, dear one, come with me beneath the banyan trees, we will practice absorption."

They went to the banyan trees, they sat down, here Siddhartha, twenty paces farther Govinda. As he sat down, ready to speak the Om, Siddhartha repeated, murmuring, the verse:

Om is the bow, the arrow is the soul, Brahman is the target of the arrow, That one shall hit unwaveringly.

When the accustomed time of the absorption exercise had passed, Govinda rose. Evening had come, it was time to perform the washing of the evening hour. He called Siddhartha's name. Siddhartha gave no answer. Siddhartha sat absorbed, his eyes stared fixedly aimed at a very distant goal, his tongue tip stood a little out between his teeth, he seemed not to breathe. Thus he sat, wrapped in absorption, thinking Om, his soul sent forth as arrow toward Brahman.

Once Samanas had passed through Siddhartha's city, pilgrim ascetics, three withered, extinguished men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bloody shoulders, nearly naked, scorched by the sun, surrounded by solitude, strange and hostile to the world, strangers and lean jackals in the realm of men. Behind them drifted hotly a scent of silent passion, of destroying service, of merciless self-denial.

In the evening, after the hour of contemplation, Siddhartha spoke to Govinda: "Tomorrow at dawn, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the Samanas. He will become a Samana."

Govinda turned pale, as he heard the words and read in the unmoving face of his friend the resolve, undeviating like the arrow sprung from the bow. At once and at first glance Govinda recognized: now it begins, now Siddhartha goes his way, now his fate begins to sprout, and with his, mine. And he became pale as a dry banana peel.

"O Siddhartha," he cried, "will your father permit you this?"

Siddhartha looked over like one awakening. Arrow-swift he read in Govinda's soul, read the fear, read the resignation.

"O Govinda," he spoke softly, "let us not waste words. Tomorrow at daybreak I will begin the life of the Samanas. Speak no more of it."

Siddhartha stepped into the chamber where his father sat on a mat of bast, and stepped behind his father and stood there until his father felt that one stood behind him. Spoke the Brahman: "Is it you, Siddhartha? Then say what you have come to say."

Spoke Siddhartha: "With your permission, my father. I have come to tell you that I desire, tomorrow, to leave your house and go to the ascetics. To become a Samana is my desire. May my father not be opposed to this."

The Brahman was silent, and silent so long that in the small window the stars wandered and changed their figure, before the silence in the chamber came to an end. Silent and motionless stood the son with crossed arms, silent and motionless sat on the mat the father, and the stars moved across the sky. Then spoke the father: "It does not befit the Brahman to speak harsh and angry words. But displeasure moves my heart. I would not hear this request a second time from your mouth."

Slowly the Brahman rose, Siddhartha stood silent with crossed arms.

"What are you waiting for?" asked the father.

Spoke Siddhartha: "You know it."

Displeased, the father went out of the chamber, displeased he sought his bed and lay down.

After an hour, when no sleep came into his eyes, the Brahman rose, paced back and forth, stepped out of the house. Through the small window of the chamber he looked in, there he saw Siddhartha standing, with crossed arms, unmoving. Pale shimmered his light upper garment. Unrest in his heart, the father returned to his bed.

After an hour, when no sleep came into his eyes, the Brahman rose again, paced back and forth, stepped before the house, saw the moon risen. Through the window of the chamber he looked in, there stood Siddhartha, unmoving, with crossed arms, on his bare shins the moonlight mirrored. Concern in his heart, the father sought his bed.

And he came again after an hour, and came again after two hours, looked through the small window, saw Siddhartha standing, in the moon, in the starlight, in the darkness. And came again from hour to hour, silently, looked into the chamber, saw the unmoving stander, filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with unrest, filled his heart with dread, filled it with sorrow.

And in the last hour of the night, before the day began, he returned again, stepped into the chamber, saw the youth standing, who seemed to him great and like a stranger.

"Siddhartha," he spoke, "what are you waiting for?"

"You know it."

"Will you always stand and wait thus, until it becomes day, becomes noon, becomes evening?"

"I will stand and wait."

"You will grow weary, Siddhartha."

"I will grow weary."

"You will fall asleep, Siddhartha."

"I will not fall asleep."

"You will die, Siddhartha."

"I will die."

"And would you rather die than obey your father?"

"Siddhartha has always obeyed his father."

"So will you give up your intent?"

"Siddhartha will do what his father tells him."

The first gleam of day fell into the chamber. The Brahman saw that Siddhartha trembled slightly in the knees. In Siddhartha's face he saw no trembling, the eyes gazed far away. Then the father recognized that Siddhartha even now no longer dwelt with him and in the homeland, that he had already left him even now.

The father touched Siddhartha's shoulder.

"You will," he spoke, "go into the forest and be a Samana. If you have found blessedness in the forest, then come and teach me blessedness. If you find disappointment, then return and let us again sacrifice together to the gods. Now go and kiss your mother, tell her where you go. But for me it is time to go to the river and perform the first washing."

He took his hand from his son's shoulder and went out. Siddhartha staggered to the side as he tried to walk. He mastered his limbs, bowed before his father and went to his mother, to do as the father had said.

As he left the still silent city at first daylight on stiffened legs, a shadow rose at the last hut, where it had crouched, and joined the pilgrim—Govinda.

"You have come," said Siddhartha and smiled.

"I have come," said Govinda.

AMONG THE SAMANAS

In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the withered Samanas, and offered them company and obedience. They were accepted.

Siddhartha gave his garment to a poor Brahman on the street. He wore only the loincloth and the earth-colored, unsewn mantle. He ate only once a day, and never anything cooked. He fasted fifteen days. He fasted twenty-eight days. The flesh shrank from his thighs and cheeks. Hot dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, on his withering fingers grew long the nails and on his chin the dry, bristly beard. Icy became his gaze when he met women; his mouth twitched with contempt when he walked through a city with finely dressed people. He saw merchants trade, princes go hunting, mourners weep for their dead, whores offer themselves, physicians labor over the sick, priests determine the day for sowing, lovers love, mothers nurse their children—and all was not worth the glance of his eye, all lied, all stank, all stank of lie, all pretended sense and happiness and beauty, and all was unconfessed decay. Bitter tasted the world. Torment was life.

A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single one: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wish, empty of dream, empty of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, to be no longer I, to find the rest of an emptied heart, to stand open to the miracle in self-denying thought, that was his goal. When all I was overcome and dead, when every craving and every drive in the heart fell silent, then the Ultimate had to awaken, the innermost in the being, which is no longer I, the great mystery.

Silently Siddhartha stood in the perpendicular sun's blaze, glowing with pain, glowing with thirst, and stood until he felt no more pain nor thirst. Silently he stood in the rainy season, from his hair dripped the water over freezing shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and the penitent stood until shoulders and legs froze no more, until they fell silent, until they were still. Silently he crouched in the thorny tangle, from the burning skin dropped the blood, from sores the pus, and Siddhartha lingered rigid, lingered motionless, until no more blood flowed, until nothing stung, until nothing burned.

Siddhartha sat upright and learned to spare his breath, learned to get by with little breath, learned to stop his breath. He learned, beginning with the breath, to calm his heartbeat, learned to diminish the beats of his heart, until there were few and almost none.

Instructed by the eldest of the Samanas, Siddhartha practiced self-denial, practiced absorption, according to new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountain, was heron, ate fish, hungered heron-hunger, spoke heron-croak, died heron-death. A dead jackal lay on the sandy shore, and Siddhartha's soul slipped into the corpse, was dead jackal, lay on the strand, swelled, stank, decayed, was torn apart by hyenas, was skinned by vultures, was skeleton, was dust, blew into the field. And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had decayed, had dispersed, had tasted the murky intoxication of the cycle, waited in new thirst like a hunter for the gap where one might escape the cycle, where the end of causes, where painless eternity would begin. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his I into a thousand foreign shapes, was animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and found himself awakening each time, sun shone or moon, was again I, swung in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst.

Much Siddhartha learned among the Samanas, many paths away from the I he learned to walk. He went the path of self-denial through pain, through the voluntary suffering and overcoming of pain, of hunger, of thirst, of weariness. He went the path of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the sense of all conceptions. These and other paths he learned to walk, a thousand times he left his I, for hours and days he remained in the non-I. But though the paths led away from the I, their end yet always led back to the I. Though Siddhartha a thousand times fled the I, dwelt in nothingness, dwelt in animal, in stone, unavoidable was the return, inescapable the hour when he found himself again, in sunshine or in moonshine, in shadow or in rain, and was again I and Siddhartha, and again felt the torment of the imposed cycle.

Beside him lived Govinda, his shadow, walked the same paths, submitted to the same efforts. Rarely did they speak with each other of aught else than the service and the exercises required. At times they went in twos through the villages, to beg food for themselves and their teachers.

"What think you, Govinda," spoke Siddhartha once on such a begging walk, "what think you, have we come further? Have we reached goals?"

Answered Govinda: "We have learned, and we keep learning. You will become a great Samana, Siddhartha. Quickly you have learned every exercise, often the old Samanas have admired you. You will one day be a saint, o Siddhartha."

Spoke Siddhartha: "It does not seem so to me, my friend. What I have learned until this day among the Samanas, that, o Govinda, I could have learned faster and simpler. In every tavern of a brothel district, my friend, among the carters and dice-players I could have learned it."

Spoke Govinda: "Siddhartha makes a jest of me. How would you have learned absorption, how would you have learned holding the breath, how would you have learned insensibility to hunger and pain there among those wretches?"

And Siddhartha said softly, as if speaking to himself: "What is absorption? What is leaving the body? What is fasting? What is holding the breath? It is flight from the I, it is a brief escape from the torment of being-I, it is a short stupefaction against the pain and the senselessness of life. The same flight, the same short stupefaction finds the ox-carter in the inn, when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he no longer feels his self, then he no longer feels the pains of life, then he finds short stupefaction. He finds, fallen asleep over his bowl of rice wine, the same that Siddhartha and Govinda find when they slip out of their bodies in long exercises, dwell in the non-I. So it is, o Govinda."

Spoke Govinda: "So you say, o friend, and yet know that Siddhartha is no ox-carter and a Samana no drunkard. Truly the drinker finds stupefaction, truly he finds brief flight and rest, but he returns from the delusion and finds everything as before, has not become wiser, has gathered no knowledge, has not climbed higher by steps."

And Siddhartha spoke with a smile: "I know not, I was never a drunkard. But that I, Siddhartha, in my exercises and absorptions find only brief stupefaction and am just as far from wisdom, from redemption as when a child in the mother's womb, that I know, o Govinda, that I know."

And again another time, when Siddhartha left the forest with Govinda, to beg in the village some food for their brothers and teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said: "How now, o Govinda, are we perhaps on the right path? Are we perhaps drawing near to knowledge? Are we perhaps drawing near to redemption? Or do we perhaps go in a circle—we, who yet thought to escape the cycle?"

Spoke Govinda: "Much have we learned, Siddhartha, much remains to learn. We do not go in a circle, we go upward, the circle is a spiral, some steps we have already climbed."

Answered Siddhartha: "How old, think you, is our eldest Samana, our venerable teacher?"

Spoke Govinda: "Perhaps sixty years our eldest may count."

And Siddhartha: "Sixty years old he has become and has not attained Nirvana. He will become seventy and eighty, and you and I, we will become just as old and will practice, and will fast, and will meditate. But Nirvana we will not attain, he not, we not. O Govinda, I believe, of all Samanas there are, perhaps not one, not one attains Nirvana. We find consolations, we find stupefactions, we learn craftiness, with which we deceive ourselves. The essential, however, the path of paths we do not find."

"May you," spoke Govinda, "not speak such terrifying words, Siddhartha! How should it be that among so many learned men, among so many Brahmans, among so many strict and venerable Samanas, among so many seeking, so many fervently diligent, so many holy men none finds the path of paths?"

Siddhartha, however, said with a voice which held as much sorrow as mockery, with a soft, a somewhat sorrowful, a somewhat mocking voice: "Soon, Govinda, your friend will leave this path of the Samanas, which he has walked so long with you. I suffer thirst, o Govinda, and on this long Samana path my thirst has become no smaller. Always have I thirsted for knowledge, always have I been full of questions. I have questioned the Brahmans, year upon year, and have questioned the holy Vedas, year upon year, and have questioned the pious Samanas, year upon year. Perhaps, o Govinda, it would have been just as good, just as wise and just as wholesome, had I questioned the hornbill or the chimpanzee. Long time I have needed and am not yet at an end, to learn this, o Govinda: that one can learn nothing! There is, so I believe, in truth that thing not which we call 'learning.' There is, o my friend, only one knowledge, which is everywhere, which is Atman, which is in me and in you and in every being. And so I begin to believe this knowledge has no worse enemy than the will-to-know, than learning."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”