Siddhartha

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. 2010. 326 mins. 170p. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Raised in a rich family, young Siddhartha has always questioned the purpose of life. Wishing to discover himself and his reason for living, he argues with his father that he must depart the religious caste he was born in so that he can pursue enlightenment. With his friend Govinda, he decides to abandon society and join the Shramanas, a group of aesthetics who live a simple life and neither own nor owe anything. After three years, however, Siddhartha still does not feel any closer to enlightenment. Hearing that the Buddha is speaking in a neighboring district, the two companions leave the Shramanas.

Convinced of the just cause of Buddha, Govinda readily joins as a monk, but Siddhartha cannot. He speaks with Buddha, and reveals that what he seeks is not a teacher who will tell him, but the experiences necessary to reach self-awareness and the true meaning of himself. He wanders through the forest, and meets a simple ferryman who appreciates the river for what it is. Siddhartha promises the ferryman he will one day return.

In the city he meets Kamala, a courtesan, and soon Siddhartha rejoins the ranks of urban dwellers, becomes a merchant, and accumulates a fortune. Unfortunately, this path is also not enough to discover himself, so he drops everything and heads back into the forest, hoping to die. At his lowest moment in life, he is saved by Govinda, who happens to stumble upon him by the river. Vowing to live again, Siddhartha reconnects with the ferryman and learns the secrets of the river, that everything is cyclical and united.

His last encounter with Kamala led to a son, and when Kamala travels through the forest and is bitten by a poisonous snake, she and her son are rescued by Siddhartha. As he raises his son after Kamala’s death, he realizes that the river is right. Just as he needed to leave to find himself, so does his son. Having now achieved wisdom, Siddhartha imparts what he has learned to his old friend Govinda when both of them are old men, that suffering and rejection, peace and tranquility, and wisdom and understanding are all interconnected and dependent on each other. That, according to Siddhartha, is the true enlightenment.

Siddhartha is panned by Tom Henderson in King Dork as being a pompous book that seeks to go against its own understanding, by aiming to teach a mismatch of Buddhists, Taoists, Hinduists and Christian ideas.