Part 3

The Buddha has robbed me, thought Siddhartha, robbed me he has, and yet more than that he has gifted me. He has robbed me of my friend, of him who believed in me and now believes in him, who was my shadow and is now Gotama's shadow. But he has gifted me with Siddhartha, with myself.

AWAKENING

As Siddhartha left the grove in which the Buddha, the Perfect One, remained behind, in which Govinda remained behind, he felt that in this grove his former life too remained behind him and parted from him. He pondered this feeling, which entirely filled him, as he walked slowly onward. He pondered deeply; like descending through deep water, he let himself sink to the bottom of this feeling, down to where the causes rest, for to recognize causes, it seemed to him, that precisely is thinking, and only thereby do feelings become insights and are not lost, but become essential and begin to radiate what is within them.

In slow walking Siddhartha thought. He ascertained that he was no longer a youth, but had become a man. He ascertained that one thing had left him, as the snake leaves its old skin, that one thing was no longer present in him which through all his youth had accompanied him and belonged to him: the wish to have teachers and to hear teachings. The last teacher who had appeared on his path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the holiest, Buddha, he had left, had had to separate from him, had been unable to accept his teaching.

The thinker walked on more slowly and asked himself: "But what now is it that you had wished to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who taught you much, could yet not teach you?" And he found: "It was the Self, whose meaning and essence I wished to learn. It was the Self, from which I wanted to escape, which I wanted to overcome. But I could not overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, could only hide from it. Truly, no thing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as this my Self, this riddle, that I live, that I am one and separated and set apart from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And of no thing in the world do I know less than of myself, of Siddhartha!"

The man walking slowly in thought stopped, seized by this thought, and forthwith from this thought sprang another, a new thought, which ran: "That I know nothing of myself, that Siddhartha has remained so strange and unknown to me, comes from one cause, a single one: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! Atman I sought, Brahman I sought, I was willing to dismember my Self and peel it apart, in order to find, in its unknown innermost, the core of all shells, the Atman, life, the Divine, the Ultimate. But I myself was lost in the process."

Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked about him, a smile filled his face, and a deep feeling of awakening from long dreams streamed through him to his very toes. And forthwith he ran again, ran swiftly, like a man who knows what he has to do.

"Oh," he thought, breathing deeply, "now I will no longer let Siddhartha slip from me! No longer will I begin my thinking and my life with Atman and with the suffering of the world. I will no longer kill and dismember myself, to find a secret behind the ruins. No longer shall Yoga-Veda teach me, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any teaching whatsoever. From myself will I learn, will I be a pupil, will I learn to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."

He looked about as if seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colorful was the world, strange and enigmatic was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, sky flowed and river, forest stared and mountain, all beautiful, all enigmatic and magical, and in the midst of it he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, upon the path to himself. All this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha through the eye for the first time, was no longer the magic of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer senseless and accidental multiplicity of the phenomenal world, despised by the deeply thinking Brahmin who rejects multiplicity and seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if in the blue and the river the One and Divine lived hidden in Siddhartha, yet it was precisely the nature and meaning of the Divine to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest and here Siddhartha. Meaning and essence were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in all.

"How deaf and dull I have been!" thought the man walking swiftly. "If one reads a scripture whose meaning he seeks, he does not despise the signs and letters and call them illusion, chance, and worthless shell, but he reads them, studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who would read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning presumed in advance, despised the signs and letters, I called the world of appearances illusion, called my eye and my tongue accidental and worthless appearances. No, this is past, I am awakened, I am truly awakened and only born today."

As Siddhartha thought this thought, he stopped again, suddenly, as if a snake lay before him on the path.

For suddenly this too had become clear to him: he, who was in truth like one awakened or newborn, must begin his life anew and wholly from the beginning. When he had left the grove Jetavana, the grove of that Exalted One, that same morning, already awakening, already upon the path to himself, it had been his intention and had seemed natural and self-evident to him that, after the years of his asceticism, he would return to his homeland and to his father. Now, however, only in this moment, as he stood still as if a snake lay on his path, did he awaken to this insight as well: "I am no longer what I was, I am no longer an ascetic, I am no longer a priest, I am no longer a Brahmin. What then should I do at home and with my father? Study? Sacrifice? Cultivate meditation? All this is past, all this no longer lies on my path."

Siddhartha stood motionless, and for a moment and a breath his heart froze, he felt it freeze within his breast like a small animal, a bird or a hare, as he saw how alone he was. For years he had been homeless and had not felt it. Now he felt it. Even in the farthest meditation, he had still been his father's son, had been a Brahmin, of high estate, a man of spirit. Now he was only Siddhartha, the awakened one, nothing more. Deeply he drew in his breath, and for a moment he froze and shuddered. No one was as alone as he. No nobleman who did not belong to the nobles, no craftsman who did not belong to the craftsmen and find refuge with them, share their life, speak their tongue. No Brahmin who was not counted among the Brahmins and lived with them, no ascetic who did not find refuge in the estate of the Samanas, and even the most lost hermit in the forest was not one and alone, even he was surrounded by belonging, even he belonged to an estate which was home to him. Govinda had become a monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore his robe, believed his faith, spoke his tongue. But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong? Whose life would he share? Whose tongue would he speak?

From this moment, where the world melted away around him, where he stood alone like a star in the sky, from this moment of cold and despondency, Siddhartha rose up, more Self than before, more firmly clenched. He felt: this had been the last shudder of awakening, the last spasm of birth. And forthwith he stepped out again, began to walk swiftly and impatiently, not homeward, not to the father, not back.

SECOND PART--Wilhelm Gundert

Dedicated to my cousin in Japan

KAMALA

Siddhartha learned new things at every step of his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun rise over the wooded mountains and set over the distant palm shore. He saw the stars ordered in the night sky, and the crescent moon floating like a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, rocks, herbs, flowers, brook and river, dew-light in the morning thicket, distant high mountains blue and pale, birds sang and bees, wind blew silver over the rice field. All this, thousandfold and colorful, had always been there, always had sun and moon shone, always had rivers rushed and bees hummed, but in former times all this had been nothing to Siddhartha but a fleeting and deceptive veil before his eye, regarded with mistrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was not essence, since essence lay beyond visibility. Now, however, his freed eye dwelt on this side, it saw and recognized visibility, sought home in this world, sought not the essence, aimed at no beyond. Beautiful was the world, when one regarded it thus, so without seeking, so simple, so childlike. Beautiful were moon and stars, beautiful were brook and bank, forest and rock, goat and gold beetle, flower and butterfly. Beautiful and lovely it was, to walk thus through the world, so childlike, so awakened, so open to the near, so without mistrust. Differently did the sun burn upon the head, differently did the forest shade cool, differently did brook and cistern taste, differently pumpkin and banana. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour fled swiftly away like a sail upon the sea, beneath the sail a ship full of treasures, full of joys. Siddhartha saw a troop of monkeys wander in the high forest vault, high in the branches, and heard their wild, greedy song. Siddhartha saw a ram pursue and mount a sheep. He saw in a reed lake the pike hunt in evening hunger, before him in flocks the young fish sprang anxiously, fluttering and flashing from the water, force and passion breathed urgently from the hasty water eddies drawn by the impetuous hunter.

All this had always been, and he had not seen it; he had not been present. Now he was present, he belonged to it. Through his eye ran light and shadow, through his heart ran star and moon.

Siddhartha also recalled on the way all that he had experienced in the garden Jetavana, the teaching he had heard there, the divine Buddha, the parting from Govinda, the conversation with the Exalted One. He recalled his own words which he had spoken to the Exalted One, every word, and with astonishment he became aware that he had said things there which he had not at that time truly known. What he had said to Gotama: his, the Buddha's, treasure and secret was not the teaching, but the unspeakable and unteachable which he had once experienced at the hour of his enlightenment--this was precisely what he was now setting out to experience, what he was now beginning to experience. Himself he must now experience. Well had he long known that his Self was Atman, of the same eternal essence as Brahman. But never had he truly found this Self, because he had wanted to catch it with the net of thought. Though certainly the body was not the Self, and not the play of the senses, yet neither was it thinking, not the intellect, not learned wisdom, not the learned art of drawing conclusions and spinning new thoughts from already thought ones. No, this thought-world too was still this side, and it led to no goal if one killed the accidental I of the senses, but instead fattened the accidental I of thoughts and learning. Both, thoughts as well as senses, were pretty things, behind both lay the ultimate meaning hidden, both were to be heeded, to be played with, neither to be despised nor overestimated, from both to eavesdrop the secret voices of the innermost. For nothing did he wish to strive but what the voice bade him strive for, at nothing to tarry but where the voice advised. Why had Gotama once, at the hour of hours, sat down beneath the bo-tree, where enlightenment struck him? He had heard a voice, a voice in his own heart, which commanded him to seek rest beneath this tree, and he had preferred no mortification, sacrifice, bath or prayer, no eating nor drinking, no sleep nor dream, he had obeyed the voice. To obey thus, not outer command, only the voice, to be thus ready, that was good, that was necessary, nothing else was necessary.

In the night, when he slept in the straw hut of a ferryman by the river, Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda stood before him, in a yellow ascetic's robe. Govinda looked sad, sadly he asked: Why have you left me? Then he embraced Govinda, wound his arms around him, and as he drew him to his breast and kissed him, it was no longer Govinda, but a woman, and from the woman's garment welled a full breast, at which Siddhartha lay and drank, sweet and strong tasted the milk of this breast. It tasted of woman and man, of sun and forest, of animal and flower, of every fruit, of every delight. It made drunk and unconscious.--When Siddhartha awoke, the pale river shimmered through the hut's door, and in the forest sounded deep and sweet a dark owl's call.

As the day began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to take him across the river. The ferryman carried him on his bamboo raft across the river, reddish shimmered the broad water in the morning light.

"That is a beautiful river," he said to his companion.

"Yes," said the ferryman, "a very beautiful river, I love it above all. Often have I listened to it, often looked into its eyes, and always have I learned from it. One can learn much from a river."

"I thank you, my benefactor," spoke Siddhartha, as he stepped onto the other shore. "No guest-gift have I to give you, dear one, and no reward to give. A homeless man am I, a Brahmin's son and Samana."

"I saw it well," spoke the ferryman, "and I have expected no reward from you, and no guest-gift. You will give me the gift another time."

"Do you believe?" said Siddhartha merrily.

"Certainly. This too have I learned from the river: everything returns! Even you, Samana, will come again. Now fare well! May your friendship be my reward. May you remember me, when you sacrifice to the gods."

Smiling they parted from one another. Smiling, Siddhartha rejoiced at the friendship and kindness of the ferryman. "Like Govinda he is," he thought smiling, "all whom I meet on my way are like Govinda. All are grateful, though they themselves would have claim to thanks. All are submissive, all like to be friend, like to obey, think little. Children are men."

Toward noon he came through a village. Before the clay huts children tumbled in the lane, played with pumpkin seeds and shells, screamed and wrestled, but all fled shyly from the strange Samana. At the end of the village the path led through a brook, and at the edge of the brook knelt a young woman washing clothes. As Siddhartha greeted her, she lifted her head, and looked up at him smiling, so that he saw the white in her eye flash. He called a blessing across, as is customary among travelers, and asked how far the way to the great city still was. Then she stood up and stepped to him, beautifully shimmered her moist mouth in the young face. She exchanged jests with him, asked whether he had already eaten, and whether it was true that the Samanas slept alone in the forest at night and might not have women with them. Thereby she set her left foot upon his right and made a movement such as the woman makes when she invites the man to that manner of love-pleasure which the textbooks call "climbing the tree." Siddhartha felt his blood warm, and as his dream occurred to him again in this moment, he bent a little down to the woman and kissed with his lips the brown tip of her breast. Looking up he saw her face smile full of longing and the narrowed eyes plead in desire.

Siddhartha too felt longing and the source of sex stir; but since he had never yet touched a woman, he hesitated a moment, while his hands were already ready to grasp for her. And in this moment he heard, shuddering, the voice of his innermost, and the voice said No. Then from the smiling face of the young woman all magic withdrew, he saw nothing more than the moist glance of a lustful animal female. Friendly he stroked her cheek, turned from her and disappeared lightly before the disappointed one into the bamboo thicket.

On this day he reached a great city before evening, and rejoiced, for he desired men. Long had he lived in the forests, and the straw hut of the ferryman, in which he had slept this night, had been the first roof over him in a long time.

Before the city, by a beautiful fenced grove, the wanderer met a small train of servants and maids, laden with baskets. In the midst, in an ornamented sedan, borne by four, sat upon red cushions beneath a colorful sunshade a woman, the mistress. Siddhartha stood at the entrance of the pleasure grove and watched the procession, saw the servants, the maids, the baskets, saw the sedan, and saw in the sedan the lady. Beneath high-piled black hair he saw a very bright, very tender, very clever face, bright-red mouth like a freshly opened fig, eyebrows tended and painted in high arches, dark eyes clever and watchful, bright high neck rising from green and golden upper garment, resting bright hands long and slender with broad gold bands over the wrists.

Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was, and his heart laughed. Deeply he bowed, as the sedan came near, and as he straightened up again he looked into the bright lovely face, read for a moment in the clever high-arched eyes, breathed a scent he did not know. Smiling, the beautiful woman nodded for a moment, and disappeared into the grove, and behind her the servants.

Thus do I enter this city, thought Siddhartha, under a lovely sign. He was drawn to step at once into the grove, but he considered, and now first became aware how the servants and maids had regarded him at the entrance, how contemptuously, how mistrustfully, how repellingly.

Still am I a Samana, he thought, still, an ascetic and beggar. Not thus may I remain, not thus step into the grove. And he laughed.

The next man who came down the way he asked about the grove and the name of this woman, and learned that this was the grove of Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that besides the grove she owned a house in the city.

Then he entered the city. He now had a goal.

Pursuing his goal, he let himself be swallowed by the city, drifted in the stream of the lanes, stood still on squares, rested on stone steps by the river. Toward evening he befriended a barber's assistant, whom he had seen working in the shadow of an archway, whom he found again praying in a temple of Vishnu, to whom he told of the stories of Vishnu and Lakshmi. By the boats at the river he slept the night, and early in the morning, before the first customers came into his shop, he had the barber's assistant shave his beard and trim his hair, comb the hair and anoint it with fine oil. Then he went to bathe in the river.

As in the late afternoon the beautiful Kamala approached her grove in the sedan, Siddhartha stood at the entrance, bowed and received the greeting of the courtesan. But to that servant who walked last in the train he waved and asked him to tell the mistress that a young Brahmin desires to speak with her. After a while the servant returned, bade the waiting one follow him, led the one following him silently into a pavilion, where Kamala lay on a resting couch, and left him alone with her.

"Were you not standing out there yesterday and greeted me?" asked Kamala.

"Indeed, I saw and greeted you yesterday already."

"But did you not wear a beard yesterday, and long hair, and dust in the hair?"

"Indeed you observed, you saw all. You saw Siddhartha, the Brahmin's son, who left his home to become a Samana, and was a Samana for three years. Now, however, I have left that path, and came into this city, and the first who met me before entering the city was you. To say this have I come to you, o Kamala! You are the first woman to whom Siddhartha speaks otherwise than with downcast eyes. Never again will I cast down my eyes, when a beautiful woman meets me."

Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacock feathers. And asked: "And only to tell me this has Siddhartha come to me?"

"To tell you this, and to thank you that you are so beautiful. And if it pleases you not, Kamala, I would beg you to be my friend and teacher, for I yet know nothing of the art in which you are mistress."

Then Kamala laughed aloud.

"Never has it happened to me, friend, that a Samana from the forest came to me and would learn from me! Never has it happened to me, that a Samana with long hair and in an old torn loincloth came to me! Many youths come to me, and among them are Brahmin's sons, but they come in beautiful clothes, they come in fine shoes, they have fragrance in the hair and money in the purses. Thus, you Samana, are the youths constituted who come to me."

Siddhartha spoke: "Already I begin to learn from you. Even yesterday already I learned. Already have I laid off the beard, have combed the hair, have oil in the hair. Little is it that still lacks me, you excellent one: fine clothes, fine shoes, money in the purse. Know, heavier things has Siddhartha resolved upon than such trifles are, and has attained them. How should I not attain what I resolved yesterday: to be your friend and learn the joys of love from you! You shall see me teachable, Kamala, heavier things have I learned than what you shall teach me. And now therefore: does Siddhartha not suffice for you, just as he is, with oil in the hair, but without clothes, without shoes, without money?"

Laughing, Kamala cried: "No, dear one, he does not yet suffice. Clothes he must have, pretty clothes, and shoes, pretty shoes, and much money in the purse, and gifts for Kamala. Do you know it now, Samana from the forest? Have you noted it?"

"Indeed have I noted it," cried Siddhartha. "How should I not note what comes from such a mouth! Your mouth is like a freshly opened fig, Kamala. Also my mouth is red and fresh, it will match yours, you shall see.--But say, beautiful Kamala, have you no fear at all of the Samana from the forest, who has come to learn love?"

"Why should I have fear of a Samana, a foolish Samana from the forest, who comes from the jackals and does not yet know what women are?"

"O, he is strong, the Samana, and fears nothing. He could force you, beautiful girl. He could rob you. He could hurt you."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”