Siddhartha

- By Herman Hesse
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German writer (1877–1962) This article is about the German writer. For the Ghanaian technology entrepreneur, see Herman Chinery-Hesse. This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (September 2023) Hermann HesseBorn(1877-07-02)2 July 1877Calw, Kingdom of Württemberg, German EmpireDied9 August 1962(1962-08-09) (aged 85)Montagnola, Ticino, SwitzerlandResting placeCimitero di S. Abbondio, Gentilino, TicinoOccupationNovelistshort story authoressayistpoetpainterCitizenshipGermanSwissGenreFictionNotable works The Glass Bead Game (1943) Siddhartha (1922) Steppenwolf (1927) Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) Demian (1919) Notable awards Gottfried-Keller-Preis (1936) Goethe Prize (1946) Nobel Prize in Literature (1946) Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize (1950) Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1955) Signature Hermann Karl Hesse (German: [ˈhɛʁman ˈhɛsə] ⓘ; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Life and work[edit] Family background[edit] Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw, in Württemberg, German Empire. His grandparents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. His grandfather Hermann Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar and a Malayalam-English dictionary, and also contributed to a translation of the Bible into Malayalam in South India.[1] Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in South India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not...". As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents returned to India.[2] Hesse's birthplace in Calw, 2007 Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in Weissenstein, Governorate of Estonia in the Russian Empire (now Paide, Järva County, Estonia). Johannes Hesse belonged to the Baltic German minority in the Russian-ruled Baltic region: thus his son Hermann was at birth a citizen of both the German Empire and the Russian Empire.[3] Hermann had five siblings, but two of them died in infancy. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing house specializing in theological texts and schoolbooks. Marie's father, Hermann Gundert (also the namesake of his grandson), managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893. Hesse grew up in a Swabian Pietist household, with the Pietist tendency to insulate believers into small, deeply thoughtful groups. Furthermore, Hesse described his father's Baltic German heritage as "an important and potent fact" of his developing identity. His father, Hesse stated, "always seemed like a very polite, very foreign, lonely, little-understood guest".[4] His father's tales from Estonia instilled a contrasting sense of religion in young Hermann. "[It was] an exceedingly cheerful, and, for all its Christianity, a merry world... We wished for nothing so longingly as to be allowed to see this Estonia... where life was so paradisiacal, so colourful and happy". Hermann Hesse's sense of estrangement from the Swabian petite bourgeoisie grew further through his relationship with his maternal grandmother Julie Gundert, née Dubois, whose French-Swiss heritage kept her from ever quite fitting in among that milieu.[4] Childhood[edit] From childhood, Hesse was headstrong and hard for his family to handle. In a letter to her husband, Hermann's mother Marie wrote: "The little fellow has a life in him, an unbelievable strength, a powerful will, and, for his four years of age, a truly astonishing mind. How can he express all that? It truly gnaws at my life, this internal fighting against his tyrannical temperament, his passionate turbulence [...] God must shape this proud spirit, then it will become something noble and magnificent – but I shudder to think what this young and passionate person might become should his upbringing be false or weak."[5] St. Nicholas-Bridge (Nikolausbrücke), one of Hesse's favourite childhood places. Click to see an enlarged image, in which the statue of Hesse can be seen near the centre. Hesse showed signs of serious depression as early as his first year at school.[6] In his juvenilia collection Gerbersau, Hesse vividly describes experiences and anecdotes from his childhood and youth in Calw: the atmosphere and adventures by the river, the bridge, the chapel, the houses leaning closely together, hidden nooks and crannies, as well as the inhabitants with their admirable qualities, their oddities, and their idiosyncrasies. The fictional town of Gerbersau is pseudonymous for Calw, imitating the real name of the nearby town of Hirsau. It is derived from the German words gerber, meaning "tanner", and aue, meaning "meadow".[7] Calw had a centuries-old leather-working industry, and during Hesse's childhood the tanneries' influence on the town was still very much in evidence.[8] Hesse's favourite place in Calw was the St. Nicholas Bridge (Nikolausbrücke), which is why a Hesse monument was built there in 2002.[9] Hermann Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert, a doctor of philosophy and fluent in multiple languages, encouraged the boy to read widely, giving him access to his library, which was filled with works of world literature. All this instilled a sense in Hermann Hesse that he was a citizen of the world. His family background became, he noted, "the basis of an isolation and a resistance to any sort of nationalism that so defined my life".[4] Young Hesse shared a love of music with his mother. Both music and poetry were important in his family. His mother wrote poetry, and his father was known for his use of language in both his sermons and the writing of religious tracts. His first role model for becoming an artist was his half-brother, Theo, who rebelled against the family by entering a music conservatory in 1885.[10] Hesse showed a precocious ability to rhyme, and by 1889–90 had decided that he wanted to be a writer.[11] Education[edit] The Swiss city of Basel, which became an important point of reference throughout Hesse's life and played an important role during the author's education In 1881, when Hesse was four, the family moved to Basel, Switzerland, staying for six years and then returning to Calw. After successful attendance at the Latin School in Göppingen, Hesse entered the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Maulbronn Abbey in 1891. The pupils lived and studied at the abbey, one of Germany's most beautiful and well-preserved, attending 41 hours of classes a week. Although Hesse did well during the first months, writing in a letter that he particularly enjoyed writing essays and translating classic Greek poetry into German, his time in Maulbronn was the beginning of a serious personal crisis.[12] In March 1892, Hesse showed his rebellious character, and, in one instance, he fled from the Seminary and was found in a field a day later. Hesse began a journey through various institutions and schools and experienced intense conflicts with his parents. In May, after an attempt at suicide, he spent time at an institution in Bad Boll under the care of theologian and minister Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Later, he was placed in a mental institution in Stetten im Remstal, and then a boys' institution in Basel. At the end of 1892, he attended the Gymnasium in Cannstatt, now part of Stuttgart. In 1893, he passed the One Year Examination, which concluded his schooling. The same year, he began spending time with older companions and took up drinking and smoking.[13] After this, Hesse began a bookshop apprenticeship in Esslingen am Neckar, but quit after three days. Then, in the early summer of 1894, he began a 14-month mechanic apprenticeship at a clock tower factory in Calw. The monotony of soldering and filing work made him turn himself toward more spiritual activities. In October 1895, he was ready to begin wholeheartedly a new apprenticeship with a bookseller in Tübingen. This experience from his youth, especially his time spent at the Seminary in Maulbronn, he returns to later in his novel Beneath the Wheel. Becoming a writer[edit] Modern Book Printing from the Walk of Ideas in Berlin, Germany On 17 October 1895, Hesse began working in the bookshop in Tübingen, which had a specialized collection in theology, philology, and law.[14] Hesse's tasks consisted of organizing, packing, and archiving the books. After the end of each twelve-hour workday, Hesse pursued his own work, and he spent his long, idle Sundays with books rather than friends. Hesse studied theological writings and later Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, and Greek mythology. He also began reading Nietzsche in 1895,[15] and that philosopher's ideas of "dual…impulses of passion and order" in humankind was a heavy influence on most of his novels.[16] By 1898, Hesse had a respectable income that enabled financial independence from his parents.[17] During this time, he concentrated on the works of the German Romantics, including much of the work of Clemens Brentano, Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Novalis. In letters to his parents, he expressed a belief that "the morality of artists is replaced by aesthetics". During this time, he was introduced to the home of Fräulein von Reutern, a friend of his family's. There he met with people his own age. His relationships with his contemporaries were "problematic", in that most of them were now at university. This usually left him feeling awkward in social situations.[18] In 1896, his poem "Madonna" appeared in a Viennese periodical and Hesse released his first small volume of poetry, Romantic Songs. In 1897, a published poem of his, "Grand Valse", drew him a fan letter. It was from Helene Voigt, who the next year married Eugen Diederichs, a young publisher. To please his wife, Diederichs agreed to publish Hesse's collection of prose entitled One Hour After Midnight in 1898 (although it is dated 1899).[19] Neither work was a commercial success. In two years, only 54 of the 600 printed copies of Romantic Songs were sold, and One Hour After Midnight received only one printing and sold sluggishly. Furthermore, Hesse "suffered a great shock" when his mother disapproved of "Romantic Songs" on the grounds that they were too secular and even "vaguely sinful".[20] From late 1899, Hesse worked in a distinguished antique bookshop in Basel. Through family contacts, he stayed with the intellectual families of Basel. In this environment with rich stimuli for his pursuits, he further developed spiritually and artistically. At the same time, Basel offered the solitary Hesse many opportunities for withdrawal into a private life of artistic self-exploration, journeys and wanderings. In 1900, Hesse was exempted from compulsory military service due to an eye condition. This, along with nerve disorders and persistent headaches, affected him his entire life. In 1901, Hesse undertook to fulfill a long-held dream and travelled for the first time to Italy. In the same year, Hesse changed jobs and began working at the antiquarium Wattenwyl in Basel. Hesse had more opportunities to release poems and small literary texts to journals. These publications now provided honorariums. His new bookstore agreed to publish his next work, Posthumous Writings and Poems of Hermann Lauscher.[21] In 1902, his mother died after a long and painful illness. He could not bring himself to attend her funeral, stating in a letter to his father: "I think it would be better for us both that I do not come, in spite of my love for my mother".[22] Due to the good notices that Hesse received for Lauscher, the publisher Samuel Fischer became interested in Hesse[23] and, with the novel Peter Camenzind, which appeared first as a pre-publication in 1903 and then as a regular printing by Fischer in 1904, came a breakthrough: from now on, Hesse could make a living as a writer. The novel became popular throughout Germany.[24] Sigmund Freud "praised Peter Camenzind as one of his favourite readings".[25] Between Lake Constance and India[edit] 1905 portrait by Ernst Würtenberger (1868–1934) Hesse's writing desk, pictured at the Museum Gaienhofen Having realised he could make a living as a writer, Hesse finally married Maria Bernoulli (of the famous family of mathematicians[26]) in 1904, while her father, who disapproved of their relationship, was away for the weekend. The couple settled down in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, and began a family, eventually having three sons. In Gaienhofen, he wrote his second novel, Beneath the Wheel, which was published in 1906. In the following time, he composed primarily short stories and poems. His story "The Wolf", written in 1906–07, was "quite possibly" a foreshadowing of Steppenwolf.[27] His next novel, Gertrude, published in 1910, revealed a production crisis. He had to struggle through writing it, and he later would describe it as "a miscarriage". Gaienhofen was the place where Hesse's interest in Buddhism was re-sparked. Following a letter to Kapff in 1895 entitled Nirvana, Hesse had ceased alluding to Buddhist references in his work. In 1904, however, Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophical ideas started receiving attention again, and Hesse discovered theosophy. Schopenhauer and theosophy renewed Hesse's interest in India. Although it was many years before the publication of Hesse's Siddhartha (1922), this masterpiece was to be derived from these new influences. During this time, there also was increased dissonance between him and Maria, and in 1911 Hesse left for a long trip to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. He also visited Sumatra, Borneo, and Burma, but "the physical experience... was to depress him".[28] Any spiritual or religious inspiration that he was looking for eluded him,[29] but the journey made a strong impression on his literary work. Following Hesse's return, the family moved to Bern (1912), but the change of environment could not solve the marriage problems, as he himself confessed in his novel Rosshalde from 1914. During the First World War[edit] At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hesse registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial Army, saying that he could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front. He was found unfit for combat duty, but was assigned to service involving the care of prisoners of war.[30] While most poets and authors of the warring countries quickly became embroiled in a tirade of mutual hate, Hesse, seemingly immune to the general war enthusiasm of the time,[31] wrote an essay titled "O Friends, Not These Tones" ("O Freunde, nicht diese Töne"),[a] which was published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, on 3 November.[32] In this essay he appealed to his fellow intellectuals not to fall for nationalistic madness and hatred.[31][32] Calling for subdued voices and recognition of Europe's common heritage,[33] Hesse wrote: "That love is greater than hate, understanding greater than ire, peace nobler than war, this exactly is what this unholy World War should burn into our memories, more so than ever felt before".[34] What followed from this, Hesse later indicated, was a great turning point in his life. For the first time, he found himself in the middle of a serious political conflict, attacked by the German press, the recipient of hate mail, and distanced from old friends. However, he did receive support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited Hesse in August 1915.[35] In 1917, Hesse wrote to Rolland, "The attempt...to apply love to matters political has failed".[36] This public controversy was not yet resolved when a deeper life crisis befell Hesse with the death of his father on 8 March 1916, the serious illness of his son Martin, and his wife's schizophrenia. He was forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. This began for Hesse a long preoccupation with psychoanalysis, through which he came to know Carl Jung personally, and was challenged to new creative heights. Hesse and Jung both later maintained a correspondence with Chilean author, diplomat and Nazi sympathizer Miguel Serrano, who detailed his relationship with both figures in the book C. G. Jung & Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships. During a three-week period in September and October 1917, Hesse penned his novel Demian, which would be published following the armistice in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair. Casa Camuzzi[edit] By the time Hesse returned to civilian life in 1919, his marriage had fallen apart. His wife had a severe episode of psychosis, but, even after her recovery, Hesse saw no possible future with her. Their home in Bern was divided, their children were accommodated in boarding houses and by relatives,[37] and Hesse resettled alone in the middle of April in Ticino. He occupied a small farmhouse near Minusio (close to Locarno), living from 25 April to 11 May in Sorengo. On 11 May, he moved to the town Montagnola and rented four small rooms in a castle-like building, the Casa Camuzzi. Here, he explored his writing projects further; he began to paint, an activity reflected in his next major story, "Klingsor's Last Summer", published in 1920. This new beginning in different surroundings brought him happiness, and Hesse later called his first year in Ticino "the fullest, most prolific, most industrious and most passionate time of my life".[38] In 1922, Hesse's novella Siddhartha appeared, which showed the love for Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy that had already developed earlier in his life. In 1924, Hesse married the singer Ruth Wenger, the daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger and aunt of Méret Oppenheim. This marriage never attained any stability, however. In 1923, Hesse was granted Swiss citizenship.[39] His next major works, Kurgast (1925) and The Nuremberg Trip (1927), were autobiographical narratives with ironic undertones and foreshadowed Hesse's following novel, Steppenwolf, which was published in 1927. In the year of his 50th birthday, the first biography of Hesse appeared, written by his friend Hugo Ball. Shortly after his new successful novel, he turned away from the solitude of Steppenwolf and started a cohabitation with art historian Ninon Dolbin, née Ausländer.[40] This change to companionship was reflected in the novel Narcissus and Goldmund, appearing in 1930. Later life and death[edit] Hesse, c. 1946 In 1931, Hesse left the Casa Camuzzi and moved with Ninon to a larger house, also near Montagnola, which was built for him to use for the rest of his life, by his friend and patron Hans C. Bodmer.[40] In the same year, Hesse formally married Ninon, and began planning what would become his last major work, The Glass Bead Game (a.k.a. Magister Ludi).[41] In 1932, as a preliminary study, he released the novella Journey to the East. Hesse observed the rise to power of Nazism in Germany with concern. In 1933, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann made their travels into exile, each aided by Hesse. In this way, Hesse attempted to work against Hitler's suppression of art and literature that protested Nazi ideology. Hesse's third wife was Jewish, and he had publicly expressed his opposition to anti-Semitism long before then.[42] Hesse was criticized for not condemning the Nazi Party, but his failure to criticize or support any political idea stemmed from his "politics of detachment [...] At no time did he openly condemn (the Nazis), although his detestation of their politics is beyond question."[43] Nazism, with its blood sacrifice of the individual to the state and the race, represented the opposite of everything he believed in. In March 1933, seven weeks after Hitler took power, Hesse wrote to a correspondent in Germany, "It is the duty of spiritual types to stand alongside the spirit and not to sing along when the people start belting out the patriotic songs their leaders have ordered them to sing". In the 1930s, Hesse made a quiet statement of resistance by reviewing and publicizing the work of banned Jewish authors, including Franz Kafka.[44] In the late 1930s, German journals stopped publishing Hesse's work, and the Nazis eventually banned it. According to Hesse, he "survived the years of the Hitler regime and the Second World War through the eleven years of work that [he] spent on [The Glass Bead Game]".[39] Printed in 1943 in Switzerland, this was to be his last novel. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. During the last twenty years of his life, Hesse wrote many short stories (chiefly recollections of his childhood) and poems (frequently with nature as their theme). Hesse also wrote ironic essays about his alienation from writing (for instance, the mock autobiographies: Life Story Briefly Told and Aus den Briefwechseln eines Dichters) and spent much time pursuing his interest in watercolours. Hesse also occupied himself with the steady stream of letters he received as a result of the Nobel Prize and as a new generation of German readers explored his work. In one essay, Hesse reflected wryly on his lifelong failure to acquire a talent for idleness and speculated that his average daily correspondence exceeded 150 pages. He died on 9 August 1962, aged 85, and was buried in the cemetery of Sant’Abbondio in Gentilino, where his friend and biographer Hugo Ball and another German personality, the conductor Bruno Walter, are also buried.[45] Religious views[edit] As reflected in Demian, and other works, he believed that "for different people, there are different ways to God".[46] Despite the influence he drew from Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, he stated about his parents that "their Christianity, one not preached but lived, was the strongest of the powers that shaped and moulded me".[47][48] Influence[edit] Statue in Calw In his time, Hesse was a popular and influential author in the German-speaking world; worldwide fame only came later. Hesse's first great novel, Peter Camenzind, was received enthusiastically by young Germans desiring a different and more "natural" way of life in this time of great economic and technological progress in the country (see also Wandervogel movement).[49] Demian had a strong and enduring influence on the generation returning home from the First World War.[50] Similarly, The Glass Bead Game, with its disciplined intellectual world of Castalia and the powers of meditation and humanity, captivated Germans' longing for a new order amid the chaos of a broken nation following the loss in the Second World War.[51] Towards the end of his life, German (born Bavarian) composer Richard Strauss (1864–1949) set three of Hesse's poems to music in his song cycle Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra (composed 1948, first performed posthumously in 1950): "Frühling" ("Spring"), "September", and "Beim Schlafengehen" ("On Going to Sleep"). In the 1950s, Hesse's popularity began to wane, while literature critics and intellectuals turned their attention to other subjects. In 1955, the sales of Hesse's books by his publisher Suhrkamp reached an all-time low. However, after Hesse's death in 1962, posthumously published writings, including letters and previously unknown pieces of prose, contributed to a new level of understanding and appreciation of his works.[52] By the time of Hesse's death in 1962, his works were still relatively little read in the United States, despite his status as a Nobel laureate. A memorial published in The New York Times went so far as to claim that Hesse's works were largely "inaccessible" to American readers. The situation changed in the mid-1960s when Hesse's works suddenly became bestsellers in the United States.[53] The revival in popularity of Hesse's works has been credited to their association with some of the popular themes of the 1960s counterculture (or hippie) movement. In particular, the quest-for-enlightenment theme of Siddhartha, Journey to the East, and Narcissus and Goldmund resonated with those espousing counter-cultural ideals. The "magic theatre" sequences in Steppenwolf were interpreted by some as drug-induced psychedelia although there is no evidence that Hesse ever took psychedelic drugs or recommended their use.[54] In large part, the Hesse boom in the United States can be traced back to enthusiastic writings by two influential counter-culture figures: Colin Wilson and Timothy Leary.[55] From the United States, the Hesse renaissance spread to other parts of the world and even back to Germany: more than 800,000 copies were sold in the German-speaking world from 1972 to 1973. In a space of just a few years, Hesse became the most widely read and translated European author of the 20th century.[53] Hesse was especially popular among young readers, a tendency which continues today.[56] There is a quote from Demian on the cover of Santana's 1970 album Abraxas, revealing the source of the album's title. Hesse's Siddhartha is one of the most popular Western novels set in India. An authorised translation of Siddhartha was published in the Malayalam language in 1990, the language that surrounded Hesse's grandfather, Hermann Gundert, for most of his life. A Hermann Hesse Society of India has also been formed. It aims to bring out authentic translations of Siddhartha in all Indian languages and has already prepared the Sanskrit,[57] Malayalam[58] and Hindi[59] translations of Siddhartha. One enduring monument to Hesse's lasting popularity in the United States is the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Referring to "The Magic Theatre for Madmen Only" in Steppenwolf (a kind of spiritual and somewhat nightmarish cabaret attended by some of the characters, including Harry Haller), the Magic Theatre was founded in 1967 to perform works by new playwrights. Founded by John Lion, the Magic Theatre has fulfilled that mission for many years, including the world premieres of many plays by Sam Shepard. There is also a theatre in Chicago named after the novel, Steppenwolf Theatre. Throughout Germany, many schools are named after him. The Hermann-Hesse-Literaturpreis is a literary prize associated with the city of Karlsruhe that has been awarded since 1957.[60] Since 1990,[61] the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize has been awarded every two years alternately to a German-language literary journal and a translator of Hesse's work.[62] The Internationale Hermann-Hesse-Gesellschaft (unofficial English name: International Hermann Hesse Society) was founded in 2002 on Hesse's 125th birthday and began awarding its Hermann Hesse prize in 2017.[63] Musician Steve Adey adapted the poem "How Heavy the Days" on his 2017 LP Do Me a Kindness. The band Steppenwolf took its name from Hesse's novel.[64] Awards[edit] 1906: Bauernfeld-Preis 1928: Mejstrik-Preis of the Schiller Foundation in Vienna 1936: Gottfried-Keller-Preis 1946: Goethe Prize 1946: Nobel Prize in Literature 1947: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bern 1950: Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize 1954: Pour le Mérite 1955: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Books[edit] Demian, 1919 Novella[edit] (1899) Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht (An Hour after Midnight) (1908) Freunde (1914) In the Old Sun (1916) Schön ist die Jugend (1919) Klein und Wagner (1920) Klingsors letzter Sommer (Klingsor's Last Summer) Novels[edit] (1904) Peter Camenzind (1906) Unterm Rad (Beneath the Wheel; also published as The Prodigy) (1910) Gertrud (1914) Roßhalde (1915) Knulp (also published as Three Tales from the Life of Knulp) (1919) Demian (published under the pen name Emil Sinclair) (1922) Siddhartha (1927) Der Steppenwolf (1930) Narziß und Goldmund (Narcissus and Goldmund; also published as Death and the Lover) (1932) Die Morgenlandfahrt (Journey to the East) (1943) Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game; also published as Magister Ludi) Short story collections[edit] (1919) Strange News from Another Star (originally published as Märchen) — written between 1913 and 1918 (1972) Stories of Five Decades (23 stories written between 1899 and 1948) Non-fiction[edit] (1913) Besuch aus Indien (Visitor from India)—philosophy (1920) Blick ins Chaos (A Glimpse into Chaos)—essays (1920) Wandering—notes and sketches (1971) If the War Goes On—essays (1972) Autobiographical Writings (including "A Guest at the Spa")—collection of prose pieces Poetry collections[edit] (1898) Romantische Lieder (Romantic Songs) (1900) Hinterlassene Schriften und Gedichte von Hermann Lauscher (The Posthumous Writings and Poems of Hermann Lauscher)—with prose (1970) Poems (21 poems written between 1899 and 1921) (1975) Crisis: Pages from a Diary (1979) Hours in the Garden and Other Poems (written during the same period as The Glass Bead Game) Film adaptations[edit] 1966: El lobo estepario (based on Steppenwolf) 1971: Zachariah (based on Siddartha) 1972: Siddhartha 1974: Steppenwolf 1981: Kinderseele 1989: Francesco 1996: Ansatsu (based on Demian) 2003: Poem: I Set My Foot Upon the Air and It Carried Me 2003: Siddhartha 2012: Homecoming [de] 2020: Narcissus and Goldmund [de] Citations[edit] ^ Gundert, Hermann (1872). A Malayalam and English Dictionary. C. Stolz. p. 14. ^ Gundert, Adele, Marie Hesse: Ein Lebensbild in Briefen und Tagebuchern [Marie Hesse: A life picture in letters and diaries] (in German) as quoted in Freedman (1978) pp. 18–19. ^ Weltbürger – Hermann Hesses übernationales und multikulturelles Denken und Wirken [Hermann Hesse's international and multicultural thinking and work] (exhibition) (in German), City of Calw: Hermann-Hesse-Museum, 2 July 2009 – 7 February 2010. ^ a b c Hesse, Hermann (1964), Briefe [Letters] (in German), Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Suhrkamp, p. 414. ^ Volker Michels (ed.): Über Hermann Hesse. Verlag Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, vol 1: 1904–1962, Repräsentative Textsammlung zu Lebzeiten Hesses. 2nd ed., 1979, ISBN 978-3-518-06831-1, p. 400. ^ Freedman, p. 30 ^ An English equivalent would be "Tannersmead". ^ Siegfried Greiner Hermann Hesse, Jugend in Calw, Thorbecke (1981), ISBN 978-3-7995-2009-6 p. viii ^ Smith, Rocky (5 April 2010). "A Special Fondness". Mr. Writer. Retrieved 4 March 2019. ^ Freedman (1978) pp. 30–32 ^ Freedman (1978) p. 39 ^ Zeller, pp. 26–30 ^ Freedman (1978) p. 53 ^ J. J. Heckenhauer. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 69. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 111. ^ Franklin, Wilbur (1977). The concept of 'the human' in the work of Hermann Hesse and Paul Tillich (PDF) (Thesis). St Andrews University. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 64. ^ Freedman(1978) pp. 78–80. ^ Freedman(1978), p. 79. ^ Freedman(1978) p. 97. ^ Freedman (1978), pp. 99–101. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 107. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 108. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 117. ^ Gustav Emil Müller, Philosophy of Literature, Ayer Publishing, 1976. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 140 ^ Freedman (1978) p. 149 ^ Kirsch, Adam (19 November 2018). "Hermann Hesse's arrested development". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 March 2019. ^ "Hermann Hesse Schriftsteller" (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 15 January 2008. ^ a b Zeller, p. 83 ^ a b Mileck, Joseph (1977). Hermann Hesse: Biography and Bibliography. Vol. 1. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-520-02756-5. Retrieved 11 October 2010. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 166 ^ Zeller, pp. 83–84 ^ Freedman (1978) pp. 170–71. ^ Freedman (1978) p. 189 ^ Zeller, p. 93 ^ Zeller, p. 94 ^ a b Hesse, Hermann (1946). "Biographical". The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 8 January 2022. ^ a b Mileck, Joseph (1978). Hermann Hesse : life and art. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 243. ISBN 0-520-03351-5. OCLC 3804203. ^ Mileck, Joseph (1978). Hermann Hesse : life and art. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 243, 246. ISBN 0-520-03351-5. OCLC 3804203. ^ Galbreath (1974) Robert. "Hermann Hesse and the Politics of Detachment", p. 63, Political Theory, vol. 2, No 1 (Feb 1974). ^ Galbreath (1974) Robert. "Hermann Hesse and the Politics of Detachment", p. 64, Political Theory, vol. 2, No 1 (Feb 1974) ^ Kirsch, Adam (12 November 2018). "Hermann Hesse's Arrested Development". The New Yorker. Retrieved 12 July 2021. ^ Mileck, Joseph (29 January 1981). Hermann Hesse: Life and Art. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-0-520-04152-3. ^ "The Religious Affiliation of Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse", Adherents, archived from the original on 14 July 2007{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link). ^ Hesse, Hermann (1951), Gesammelte Werke [Collected Works] (in German), Suhrkamp Verlag, p. 378, Von ihnen bin ich erzogen, von ihnen habe ich die Bibel und Lehre vererbt bekommen, Ihr nicht gepredigtes, sondern gelebtes Christentum ist unter den Mächten, die mich erzogen und geformt haben, die stärkste gewesen [I have been educated by them; I have inherited the Bible and doctrine from them; their Christianity, not preached, but lived, has been the strongest among the powers that educated and formed me]. Another translation: "Not the preached, but their practiced Christianity, among the powers that shaped and molded me, has been the strongest." ^ Hilbert, Mathias (2005), Hermann Hesse und sein Elternhaus – Zwischen Rebellion und Liebe: Eine biographische Spurensuche [Hermann Hesse and his Parents’ House – Between Rebellion and Love: A biographical search] (in German), Calwer Verlag, p. 226. ^ Prinz, pp. 139–42 ^ Zeller, p. 90 ^ Zeller, p. 186 ^ Zeller, pp. 180–81 ^ a b Zeller, p. 185 ^ Zeller p. 189 ^ Zeller, p. 188 ^ Zeller p. 186 ^ Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Sanskrit Translation by L. Sulochana Devi. Trivandrum, Hermann Hesse Society of India, 2008 [1] ^ Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Malayalam Translation by R. Raman Nair. Trivandrum, CSIS, 1993 ^ Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Hindi Translation by Prabakaran, hebbar Illath. Trivandrum, Hermann Hesse Society of India, 2012 [2] ^ Hermann-Hesse-Preis 2003 Archived 9 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine. karlsruhe.de ^ "The winners of the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize". Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018. ^ Calw Hermann Hesse Prize. Hermann-hesse.de (18 September 2012). Retrieved 23 September 2012. ^ Adolf Muschg erster Preisträger des neu ausgelobten Preis der Internationalen Hermann Hesse Gesellschaft (in German) ^ Binder, Antje (7 October 2016). "5 bands whose names you probably didn't know were inspired by literature". dw.com. Retrieved 4 December 2021. Sources[edit] Freedman, Ralph (1997). Hermann Hesse, Pilgrim of Crisis: A Biography. New York: Fromm International. ISBN 978-0-88064-172-2. OCLC 35159328. Prinz, Alois (2006). "Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne": die Lebensgeschichte des Hermann Hesse (in German). Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-45742-9. OCLC 181463174. Zeller, Bernhard (2005). Hermann Hesse (in German). Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-499-50676-9. OCLC 61714622. External links[edit] Hermann Hesse at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from Wikisource Works by Hermann Hesse in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Hermann Hesse at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Hermann Hesse at Internet Archive Works by Hermann Hesse at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by Hermann Hesse at Open Library List of works Publications by and about Hermann Hesse in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library "Literary estate of Hermann Hesse". HelveticArchives. Swiss National Library. 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Sumner (United States) John Howard Northrop (United States) Wendell Meredith Stanley (United States) Literature (1946) Hermann Hesse (Switzerland) Peace Emily Greene Balch (United States) John Mott (United States) Physics Percy Williams Bridgman (United States) Physiology or Medicine Hermann Joseph Muller (United States) Nobel Prize recipients 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 vteList of Gottfried-Keller-Preis winners 1922: Jakob Bosshart 1925: Heinrich Federer 1927: Charles Ferdinand Ramuz 1929: Josef Nadler 1931: Hans Carossa 1933: Festgabe Universität Zürich 1936: Hermann Hesse 1938: Ernst Gagliardi 1943: Robert Faesi 1947: Fritz Ernst 1949: Rudolf Kassner 1952: Gertrud von Le Fort 1954: Werner Kaegi 1956: Max Rychner 1959: Maurice Zermatten 1962: Emil Staiger 1965: Meinrad Inglin 1967: Edzard Schaper 1969: Golo Mann 1971: Marcel Raymond 1973: Ignazio Silone 1975: Hans Urs von Balthasar 1977: Elias Canetti 1979: Max Wehrli 1981: Philippe Jaccottet 1983: Hermann Lenz 1985: Herbert Lüthy 1989: Jacques Mercanton 1992: Erika Burkart 1994: Gerhard Meier 1997: Giovanni Orelli 1999: Peter Bichsel 2001: Ágota Kristóf 2004: Klaus Merz 2007: Fabio Pusterla 2010: Gerold Späth 2013: Collective of writers Bern ist überall 2016: Pietro De Marchi 2019: Adolf Muschg and Thomas Hürlimann vteBernoulli family tree Nicolaus Bernoulli (1623–1708) Jacob Bernoulli (1654–1705)Nicolaus Bernoulli (1662–1716)Johann Bernoulli (1667–1748) Nicolaus I Bernoulli (1687–1759)Nicolaus II Bernoulli (1695–1726)Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782)Johann II Bernoulli (1710–1790) Johann III Bernoulli (1744–1807)Daniel II Bernoulli (1751–1834)Nicolaus IV Bernoulli (1754–1841)Jakob II Bernoulli (1759–1789) Nicolaus (1793–1876) Fritz (1824–1913)Theodor (1837–1909) Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)Maria Bernoulli [de] (1868–1963)Elisabeth Bernoulli (1873–1935)Hans Benno Bernoulli (1876–1959) Authority control databases International FAST ISNI 2 3 VIAF 2 National Norway Chile Spain France BnF data Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Finland Belgium 2 United States Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece Korea Croatia Netherlands Poland Portugal Russia 2 Vatican Academics CiNii Artists ADK MusicBrainz Museum of Modern Art Musée d'Orsay RKD Artists SIKART Te Papa (New Zealand) ULAN People BMLO Deutsche Biographie Trove Other Historical Dictionary of Switzerland RISM SNAC IdRef

Siddhartha

FIRST PART To Romain Rolland, my dear friend THE SON OF THE BRAHMAN
In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe.
Joy leapt in his father's heart for his son who was quick to learn, thirsty for knowledge; he saw him growing up to become great wise man and priest, a prince among the Brahmans.
Bliss leapt in his mother's breast when she saw him, when she saw him walking, when she saw him sit down and get up, Siddhartha, strong, handsome, he who was walking on slender legs, greeting her with perfect respect.
Love touched the hearts of the Brahmans' young daughters when Siddhartha walked through the lanes of the town with the luminous forehead, with the eye of a king, with his slim hips.
But more than all the others he was loved by Govinda, his friend, the son of a Brahman. He loved Siddhartha's eye and sweet voice, he loved his walk and the perfect decency of his movements, he loved everything Siddhartha did and said and what he loved most was his spirit, his transcendent, fiery thoughts, his ardent will, his high calling. Govinda knew: he would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many. No, and he, Govinda, as well did not want to become one of those, not one of those tens of thousands of Brahmans. He wanted to follow Siddhartha, the beloved, the splendid. And in days to come, when Siddhartha would become a god, when he would join the glorious, then Govinda wanted to follow him as his friend, his companion, his servant, his spear-carrier, his shadow.
Siddhartha was thus loved by everyone. He was a source of joy for everybody, he was a delight for them all. But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans.
Siddhartha had started to nurse discontent in himself, he had started to feel that the love of his father and the love of his mother, and also the love of his friend, Govinda, would not bring him joy for ever and ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him. He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent-but was that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much-but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?
Surely, many verses of the holy books, particularly in the Upanishades of Samaveda, spoke of this innermost and ultimate thing, wonderful verses. "Your soul is the whole world", was written there, and it was written that man in his sleep, in his deep sleep, would meet with his innermost part and would reside in the Atman. Marvellous wisdom was in these verses, all knowledge of the wisest ones had been collected here in magic words, pure as honey collected by bees. No, not to be looked down upon was the tremendous amount of enlightenment which lay here collected and preserved by innumerable generations of wise Brahmans.- But where were the Brahmans, where the priests, where the wise men or penitents, who had succeeded in not just knowing this deepest of all knowledge but also to live it? Where was the knowledgeable one who wove his spell to bring his familiarity with the Atman out of the sleep into the state of being awake, into the life, into every step of the way, into word and deed? Siddhartha knew many venerable Brahmans, chiefly his father, the pure one, the scholar, the most venerable one. His father was to be admired, quiet and noble were his manners, pure his life, wise his words, delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow -but even he, who knew so much, did he live in blissfulness, did he have peace, was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man? Did he not, again and again, have to drink from holy sources, as a thirsty man, from the offerings, from the books, from the disputes of the Brahmans? Why did he, the irreproachable one, have to wash off sins every day, strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day? Was not Atman in him, did not the pristine source spring from his heart? It had to be found, the pristine source in one's own self, it had to be possessed! Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost.
Thus were Siddhartha's thoughts, this was his thirst, this was his suffering. Often he spoke to himself from a Chandogya-Upanishad the words: "Truly, the name of the Brahman is satyam-verily, he who knows such a thing, will enter the heavenly world every day." Often, it seemed near, the heavenly world, but never he had reached it completely, never he had quenched the ultimate thirst. And among all the wise and wisest men, he knew and whose instructions he had received, among all of them there was no one, who had reached it completely, the heavenly world, who had quenched it completely, the eternal thirst.
"Govinda," Siddhartha spoke to his friend, "Govinda, my dear, come with me under the Banyan tree, let's practise meditation." They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down, Siddhartha right here, Govinda twenty paces away. While putting himself down, ready to speak the Om, Siddhartha repeated murmuring the verse:
Om is the bow, the arrow is soul, The Brahman is the arrow's target, That one should incessantly hit. After the usual time of the exercise in meditation had passed, Govinda rose. The evening had come, it was time to perform the evening's ablution. He called Siddhartha's name. Siddhartha did not answer. Siddhartha sat there lost in thought, his eyes were rigidly focused towards a very distant target, the tip of his tongue was protruding a little between the teeth, he seemed not to breathe. Thus sat he, wrapped up in contemplation, thinking Om, his soul sent after the Brahman as an arrow.
Once, Samanas had travelled through Siddhartha's town, ascetics on a pilgrimage, three skinny, withered men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bloody shoulders, almost naked, scorched by the sun, surrounded by loneliness, strangers and enemies to the world, strangers and lank jackals in the realm of humans. Behind them blew a hot scent of quiet passion, of destructive service, of merciless self-denial.
In the evening, after the hour of contemplation, Siddhartha spoke to Govinda: "Early tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the Samanas. He will become a Samana." Govinda turned pale, when he heard these words and read the decision in the motionless face of his friend, unstoppable like the arrow shot from the bow. Soon and with the first glance, Govinda realized: Now it is beginning, now Siddhartha is taking his own way, now his fate is beginning to sprout, and with his, my own. And he turned pale like a dry banana-skin.
"O Siddhartha," he exclaimed, "will your father permit you to do that?" Siddhartha looked over as if he was just waking up. Arrow-fast he read in Govinda's soul, read the fear, read the submission.
"O Govinda," he spoke quietly, "let's not waste words. Tomorrow, at daybreak I will begin the life of the Samanas. Speak no more of it." Siddhartha entered the chamber, where his father was sitting on a mat of bast, and stepped behind his father and remained standing there, until his father felt that someone was standing behind him. Quoth the Brahman: "Is that you, Siddhartha? Then say what you came to say."
Quoth Siddhartha: "With your permission, my father. I came to tell you that it is my longing to leave your house tomorrow and go to the ascetics. My desire is to become a Samana. May my father not oppose this."
The Brahman fell silent, and remained silent for so long that the stars in the small window wandered and changed their relative positions, 'ere the silence was broken. Silent and motionless stood the son with his arms folded, silent and motionless sat the father on the mat, and the stars traced their paths in the sky. Then spoke the father: "Not proper it is for a Brahman to speak harsh and angry words. But indignation is in my heart. I wish not to hear this request for a second time from your mouth."
Slowly, the Brahman rose; Siddhartha stood silently, his arms folded. "What are you waiting for?" asked the father. Quoth Siddhartha: "You know what." Indignant, the father left the chamber; indignant, he went to his bed and lay down.
After an hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman stood up, paced to and fro, and left the house. Through the small window of the chamber he looked back inside, and there he saw Siddhartha standing, his arms folded, not moving from his spot. Pale shimmered his bright robe. With anxiety in his heart, the father returned to his bed.
After another hour, since no sleep had come over his eyes, the Brahman stood up again, paced to and fro, walked out of the house and saw that the moon had risen. Through the window of the chamber he looked back inside; there stood Siddhartha, not moving from his spot, his arms folded, moonlight reflecting from his bare shins. With worry in his heart, the father went back to bed.
And he came back after an hour, he came back after two hours, looked through the small window, saw Siddhartha standing, in the moon light, by the light of the stars, in the darkness. And he came back hour after hour, silently, he looked into the chamber, saw him standing in the same place, filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with unrest, filled his heart with anguish, filled it with sadness.
And in the night's last hour, before the day began, he returned, stepped into the room, saw the young man standing there, who seemed tall and like a stranger to him. "Siddhartha," he spoke, "what are you waiting for?" "You know what." "Will you always stand that way and wait, until it'll becomes morning, noon, and evening?"
"I will stand and wait. "You will become tired, Siddhartha." "I will become tired." "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 abandon your plan?" "Siddhartha will do what his father will tell him to do."
The first light of day shone into the room. The Brahman saw that Siddhartha was trembling softly in his knees. In Siddhartha's face he saw no trembling, his eyes were fixed on a distant spot. Then his father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that he had already left him. The Father touched Siddhartha's shoulder.
"You will," he spoke, "go into the forest and be a Samana. When you'll have found blissfulness in the forest, then come back and teach me to be blissful. If you'll find disappointment, then return and let us once again make offerings to the gods together. Go now and kiss your mother, tell her where you are going to. But for me it is time to go to the river and to perform the first ablution." He took his hand from the shoulder of his son and went outside. Siddhartha wavered to the side, as he tried to walk. He put his limbs back under control, bowed to his father, and went to his mother to do as his father had said.
As he slowly left on stiff legs in the first light of day the still quiet town, a shadow rose near the last hut, who had crouched there, and joined the pilgrim-Govinda. "You have come," said Siddhartha and smiled. "I have come," said Govinda.
AWAKENING
When Siddhartha left the grove, where the Buddha, the perfected one, stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this grove his past life also stayed behind and parted from him. He pondered about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly walking along. He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to emit like rays of light what is inside of them.
Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered. He realized that he was no youth any more, but had turned into a man. He realized that one thing had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to teachings. He had also left the last teacher who had appeared on his path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the most holy one, Buddha, he had left him, had to part with him, was not able to accept his teachings.
Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: "But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?" And he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"
Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: "That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process."
Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face and a feeling of awakening from long dreams flowed through him from his head down to his toes. And it was not long before he walked again, walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.
"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha escape from me again! No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my life with Atman and with the suffering of the world. I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins. Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."
He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.
"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day."
In thinking this thoughts, Siddhartha stopped once again, suddenly, as if there was a snake lying in front of him on the path. Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this: He, who was indeed like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to start his life anew and start again at the very beginning. When he had left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself, he had every intention, regarded as natural and took for granted, that he, after years as an ascetic, would return to his home and his father. But now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake was lying on his path, he also awoke to this realization: "But I am no longer the one I was, I am no ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am no Brahman any more. Whatever should I do at home and at my father's place? Study? Make offerings? Practise meditation? But all this is over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."
Motionless, Siddhartha remained standing there, and for the time of one moment and breath, his heart felt cold, he felt a cold in his chest, as a small animal, a bird or a rabbit, would when seeing how alone he was. For many years, he had been without home and had felt nothing. Now, he felt it. Still, even in the deepest meditation, he had been his father's son, had been a Brahman, of a high caste, a cleric. Now, he was nothing but Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing else was left. Deeply, he inhaled, and for a moment, he felt cold and shivered. Nobody was thus alone as he was. There was no nobleman who did not belong to the noblemen, no worker that did not belong to the workers, and found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language. No Brahman, who would not be regarded as Brahmans and lived with them, no ascetic who would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas, and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one and alone, he was also surrounded by a place he belonged to, he also belonged to a caste, in which he was at home. Govinda had become a monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore the same robe as he, believed in his faith, spoke his language. But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong to? With whom would he share his life? Whose language would he speak?
Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently, heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.

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Word Lists:

Ablution : the act of washing oneself (often used for humorously formal effect)

Coincidental : resulting from a coincidence; done or happening by chance

Ascetic : characterized by or suggesting the practice of severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons

Pristine : in its original condition; unspoiled

Indestructible : not able to be destroyed

Awakening : an act of waking from sleep

Blissful : extremely happy; full of joy

Knowledgeable : intelligent and well informed

Inhale : breathe in (air, gas, smoke, etc.)

Grove : a small wood, orchard, or group of trees

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Additional Information:

Rating: C Words in the Passage: 4185 Unique Words: 960 Sentences: 193
Noun: 958 Conjunction: 324 Adverb: 325 Interjection: 2
Adjective: 317 Pronoun: 502 Verb: 733 Preposition: 481
Letter Count: 18,043 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 546
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