Copyright (C) 2018 by David Wyllie.

This translation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which appears below and may be found online at [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/]

SIDDHARTHA
A poem of India

by Hermann Hesse

Translated into English by David Wyllie

PART ONE

Dedicated to my revered friend, Romain Rolland

THE BRAHMIN’S SON

In the shade of the house, in the sunshine on the river bank where the boats were, in the shade of the forest of shala trees, in the shade of the fig tree, this is where Siddhartha grew up, the brahmin’s most handsome son, the young falcon, alongside his friend Govinda, the brahmin’s son. His pale shoulders were bronzed by the sunshine on the river bank, when he was bathing, when performing ceremonious ablutions, when making holy sacrifices. Shadow flowed into his dark eyes in the mango groves, when playing boyish games, when his mother sang, when he talked with the wise ones. Siddhartha spent many hours in conversation with the wise ones, he practised his skills of rhetoric with Govinda, practised the art of thought with Govinda, in order to achieve mystic contemplation. He was already able to utter the holy word, Om, in silence, the word of words, in silence to utter it and draw it in with his breath, in silence to utter it and send it out with his breath, his mind collected, his brow surrounded with the light of the clear-thinking soul. He was already able to understand, in his innermost being, the nature of Atman, indestructible, at one with the universe.

Joy sprang up in his father’s heart when he saw his son, the learned one, the one with a thirst for knowledge, joy sprang up when he foretold that he would grow into a wise man and a priest, a prince among the brahmins.

Bliss sprang up in his mother’s breast when she saw her son, when she saw him walk, when she saw him sit down and stand up, Siddhartha, the strong one, the handsome one, walking on his slender legs, when, with perfect decorum, he her offered her his greetings.

Love was stirred in the hearts of the brahmins’ daughters when they saw Siddhartha walk through the streets of the town, his luminous brow, the eyes of a king, his narrow hips.

But the one who loved him more than all the others was Govinda, his friend, the brahmin’s son. He loved Siddhartha’s eyes and his noble voice, he loved his walk and the perfect grace of his movements, he loved everything that Siddhartha did or said, and most of all he loved his soul, his lofty and fiery thoughts, the bright glow of his will, his lofty vocation. Govinda knew that Siddhartha would never become a mediocre brahmin, no lazy officiator of sacrifices, no greedy peddler of magic spells, no rhetorician of vain and empty speech, no sly or malevolent priest, and also never become a good but stupid sheep in the flock of many. No, and he too, Govinda, had no wish to become one such, not one of those brahmans that are numbered in their thousands. He wanted to be a follower of Siddhartha, the beloved, the noble. And if Siddhartha ever became a god, if he ever went to join the luminous ones, then Govinda would follow him, as his friend, as his companion, as his servant, as his spear carrier, his shadow.

Everyone loved Siddhartha in the same way. To everyone he brought joy.

To himself, though, Siddhartha did not bring joy. Wandering between the roses in the fig garden, sitting in the bluish shade in the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs in his daily act of atonement, performing sacrifice in the dark shade of the mango wood, all his movements as they should be, loved by all, joy to all, he nonetheless carried no joy in his own heart. Tears came to him, restless thoughts came to him from the water of the river as it flowed, from the stars of the night as they sparkled, from the rays of the Sun as they blazed, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, from the smoke of his sacrifices, from the verses of the Rig Veda as he breathed them, from the teachings of the ancient brahmins as they seeped into him.

Siddhartha had begun to nurture discontent in himself. He had begun to feel that his father’s love, and his mother’s love, and the love of his friend, Govinda, would not always and for all time bring him happiness, calm him, satisfy him, be enough for him. He had begun to see that his venerable father and his other teachers, the wise brahmins, had already given him almost all of their wisdom, all the best of their wisdom, that their fullness had already been poured into his vessel, receptive and ready to accept it, and that the vessel was not full, the spirit was not satisfied, the soul was not quieted, the heart was not at peace. The washings were good, but they were water, they did not wash sins away, they did not assuage the thirst of the soul, they did not dispel the pain of the heart. Most important of all were the sacrifices and the call of the gods - but was that all? Did the sacrifices bring happiness? And how did the gods feel about that? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not Atman, him, the only one, the all-in-one? Were the gods not forms that had been created like you and me, subject to time, mortal? So was it good to make sacrifice to the gods, was it proper, was it a meaningful and elevated act? Whom else would you make sacrifice to, whom else should you offer your veneration to other than Him, the one and only, Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He live, where did His eternal heart beat, where else but in the Self, in the Deepest, in the Indestructible that every man carried in himself? But where, where was this Self, this Deepest, this Ultimate? It was not made of flesh and bone, it was not thought or consciousness, that is was the wisest men taught. Where, where was it then? To pierce through to the Self, to me, to Atman - was there any other way worth seeking out? But no-one showed him this way, no-one knew it, not his father, not his teachers or the wise men, not the sacred songs of sacrifice! They knew everything, the brahmins and their holy books, knew everything, they had made great efforts into everything and into more than everything, the creation of the world, the origins of speech, food, breathing in and breathing out, the hierarchy of sins, the acts of the gods - their knowledge was boundless - but was it worth knowing all of this when there was one single thing they did not know, the thing of highest importance, the only thing of importance?

It was true that many verses in the holy scriptures, magnificent verses such as the Upanishads of the Samaveda, spoke of this deepest and ultimate thing. “Your soul is the entire world,” was written there, and it was written that man in his sleep, deep sleep, enters into his deepest part and lives in Atman. Great wisdom was written in these verses, all the knowledge of the wisest was collected here and presented in words of magic, as pure as the honey collected from the bees. No, the enormous amount of knowledge here, assembled and preserved through countless generations of wise brahmins, was not to be under-valued. - but where were the brahmins, where were the priests, where were the wise men and the penitents who had succeeded not only in learning this deepest wisdom but in living it? Where was the gifted one who, by his magic, would draw the essence of Atman out of its sleep and make it alert, something that was alive in its coming and going, in word and deed? Siddhartha knew many venerable brahmins, most of all he knew his father, the pure one, the learned one, the most venerable of all. His father was an admirable man, quiet and noble in his manner, pure his life, wise his words, in his brow lived fine and noble thoughts - but even he, who had so much knowledge; Did he live in holiness, was he at peace, was he, too, not just another seeker, just another thirsty one? Did he not, over and again, need to go to the well to assuage his thirst, did he not need to make sacrifice, read books and debate his beliefs with the brahmins? Why did he, the immaculate one, need to wash his sins away every day, strive to become pure every day, every day again and again? Was Atman not a part of him, did the source not flow into his heart? The source of all things had to be found, the source within us all, it had to be taken into ourselves! All else was mere seeking, mere straying from the path, mere delusion.

These were the thoughts of Siddhartha, this was his thirst, this was his sorrow.

He would often recite the words from one of the Chandogya Upanishads: “Forsooth, the name of Brahman is Satyam - forsooth, he who knows such things goeth daily into the world of Heaven.” The world of Heaven often seemed near to him, but he had never quite been able to reach it, never been able to quench the ultimate thirst. And from all the wise men he knew, even from the wisest of all, whose teachings he enjoyed, there was not one who ever had quite reached it, the world of Heaven, which would have quenched the ultimate thirst for him.

“Govinda,” said Siddhartha to his friend, “Govinda, dear friend, come with me under the banyan tree, we have to nurture our skill of contemplation.”

They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down beneath it, Siddhartha here and, twenty paces away, sat Govinda. As he sat down in preparedness to utter the word ‘Om,’ Siddhartha repeatedly muttered the verse:

Om is the bow, the arrow is the soul,
Brahman is the arrow’s goal,
The goal to reach directly.

After they had practised contemplation for their usual length of time Govinda stood. The evening had come, it was time to wash in preparation for the evening. He called out Siddhartha’s name. Siddhartha gave no answer. Siddhartha sat deep in contemplation, his eyes were fixed on a greatly distant object, the tip of his tongue protruded slightly from between his teeth, he seemed not to be breathing. So he sat, engrossed in contemplation, his mind fixed on Om, his soul as the arrow sent out to Brahman.

One day samanas came through the town where Siddhartha lived, travelling ascetics, three men wizened and close to death, neither old nor young, their shoulders were bloody and dusty, they were nearly naked and they were scorched by the sun, an air of loneliness about them, alien to this world and the enemy of the world, strangers, emaciated jackals in the empire of man. The odour of quiet suffering blew in from behind them, of service that destroyed, of pitiless loss of self.

That evening, after their hour of contemplation, Siddhartha said to Govinda, “Tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the samanas. He will become a samana.”

When Govinda heard these words and saw the unshakable resolution in his friend’s face he turned pale. Siddhartha could no more be dissuaded from his course than the arrow speeding from the bow. Just as soon as he saw this, Govinda knew that this was where it started, Siddhartha would now go on his way, now his destiny would begin to grow, and with Siddhartha’s destiny so would Govinda’s. And he became as pale as a dried banana skin.

Oh, Siddhartha,” he exclaimed, “will your father allow that?”

Siddhartha looked back at him as one who was awakening. With the speed of an arrow he saw the fear, saw the resignation in Govinda’s soul.

“Oh, Govinda,” he said gently, “let us not waste words. Tomorrow, at the break of day, I will embark on the life of a samana. Let us talk no more about it.”

Siddhartha went into the room where his father sat on a raffia mat and stood behind him until his father could feel that he was there. The brahmin said, “Is that you, Siddhartha? Say what it is you have come to tell me.”

Siddhartha answered, “If you will allow it, father, I have come to tell you that I have been called on to leave your house in the morning and to go among the ascetics. It is my vocation to become a samana. I hope my father will not be opposed to this.”

The brahmin was silent, and remained silent so long that, before the silence in the room came to an end, the stars outside the little window had moved across the sky and formed new shapes. His son remained there, speechless and immobile, his arms crossed, the father sat there on the mat, speechless and immobile, while the stars made their way across the sky. Finally, Siddhartha’s father spoke. “It is not seemly for a brahmin to speak loud and angry words, but my heart is moved to oppose this. I do not want to hear this request from your mouth a second time.”

Slowly, the brahmin got to his feet, Siddhartha stood in silence, his arms crossed.

“What are you waiting for?” his father asked.

Siddhartha said, “You know what I am waiting for.”

Displeased, his father left the room, displeased he went to his bed and lay himself down.

An hour passed, as no sleep came to his eyes, the brahmin stood up, paced to and fro, left the house. He looked in through the little window of the room, there he saw Siddhartha standing, his arms crossed, unchanged. His upper clothing shone palely. Unease in his heart, Siddhartha’s father went back to his bed.

Another hour passed, as no sleep came to his eyes, the brahmin stood up again, paced to and fro, went to the front of the house, saw that the moon had risen. He looked in through the little window of the room, there he saw Siddhartha standing, resolute, his arms crossed, moonlight reflecting from his bare legs. With worry in his heart, Siddhartha’s father went back to his bed.

He came again after an hour, and came again after two hours, looked in at the little window, saw Siddhartha standing there, in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the darkness. He came again hour after hour, in silence, looked into the room, saw the resolute one standing there, it filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with anxiety, filled his heart with doubts, filled it with sorrow.

And in the last hour of the night, before the day began, he went back again, entered the room, saw the young man standing there. He seemed great to him, and like a stranger.

“Siddhartha,” he said, “what is it you are waiting for?”

“You know what I am waiting for.”

“Will you persist in standing like this and waiting until day comes, midday comes, evening comes?”

“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 do as your father tells you?”

“Siddhartha has always done as his father has told him.”

“So will you give up this idea?”

“Siddhartha will do as his father says.”

The first rays of daylight fell into the room. The brahmin saw that Siddhartha’s knees were trembling slightly. He saw no tremble in Siddhartha’s face, his eyes fixed on the far distance. Then his father realised that Siddhartha was no longer with him in his native country, that he had already left him.

His father touched Siddhartha’s shoulder.

“You will go into the woods and become a samana,” he said. “If you find holiness in the woods come and teach me about holiness. If you find disappointment come back and we can make sacrifices to the gods together again. Now go and kiss your mother, tell her where you’re going. For me, it is time now to go down to the river and start the first washing of the day.”

He took his hand off his son’s shoulder and went out. Siddhartha staggered to one side as he tried to walk. He forced his limbs to do as he wanted, bowed to his father and went to his mother to do as his father had told him.

The town, in the light of early morning, was still quiet as Siddhartha walked out of it, moving slowly on his stiff legs. As he passed the last hut a shadow rose from where it had been crouching and approached the pilgrim - Govinda.

“You have come,” said Siddhartha with a smile.

“I have come,” said Govinda.

AMONG THE SAMANAS

They reached the samanas that evening, the emaciated samanas, and offered them their company and their obedience. They were accepted.

Siddhartha had given his coat to a poor brahmin on the way there. All he wore now were his loin cloth and an earth coloured, untailored cloak. He ate just once a day and never had cooked food. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh disappeared from his limbs and his cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his bulging eyes, the nails grew long on his desiccated fingers, a dry, unkempt beard. When he encountered a woman his eyes became icy; his mouth twitched with contempt when he entered a town and saw the people in their fine clothes. He saw businessmen doing business, he saw noblemen go hunting, he saw the bereaved grieving for their dead, whores offering their bodies, doctors taking care of the sick, priests saying when to sow crops, lovers loving, mothers feeding their babies - and none of this was worth a glance from him, all was lies, everything stank, everything stank of lies, everything made a pretence of good sense and happiness and beauty, all was in decay and none could see it. The world tasted bitter. Life was a torment.

Siddhartha had but one objective: to empty himself, to empty himself of thirst, of desire, of dreams, empty himself of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, to no longer be himself, to find peace by emptying his own heart, to stand open to the miracle by alienating his own thoughts, that was his objective. Once the whole of his self had been overcome and destroyed, once every need and every drive of his heart was silent, that was when the ultimate had to wake, the deepest part of his being, that which is no longer the self, the great secret.

Siddhartha stood silent in the vertical glare of the Sun, aglow with pain, aglow with thirst, and he stood there till he no longer felt pain nor thirst. He stood silent in the time of rains with the water flowing from his hair onto his icy cold shoulders, over his icy cold hips and legs, and the penitent remained standing there till his shoulders and his legs no longer felt icy cold, till they became silent, till they were at peace. He crouched silent in the thorny bushes, blood dropping from his burning skin, pus dropping from his wounds, and Siddhartha remained rigid, remained motionless, till the blood no longer flowed, till the thorns no longer pierced his skin, till nothing more burned him.

Siddhartha sat up straight and learned to control his breath, learned to need little air, learned to stop his breath. He learned, starting with his breath, to still the beats of his heart, learned to reduce the beats of his heart till they became fewer and then till there were almost none.

Siddhartha was taught by the eldest of the samanas, he trained in losing the self, he trained in contemplation, learned new samana rules. A heron flew out of the bamboo forest - and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the woods and mountains, he was a heron, he ate fish, he hungered as a heron hungers, he spoke the heron language, he died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay on the sand by the water, and Siddhartha’s soul slipped into the corpse, he was entirely a jackal, he lay on the shore, he bloated with gas, he stank, he decayed, he was torn apart by hyenas, he lost his skin to the vultures, he became a skeleton, became dust, blew in the wind that crossed the meadows. And Siddhartha’s soul came back to him, died, decayed, crumbled, it had tasted the dark inebriation of the circle of life, again endured thirst like the hunter in the wasteland where the circle of life might be left behind, where cause and effect ended, where eternity without pain began. He brought death to his senses, brought death to his memory, slipped out of his own self and into a thousand alien forms, he was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and each time found himself ever more aware, light of sun or moon, became again himself, swang in the circle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt the thirst anew.

Among the samanas Siddhartha learned many things, he learned many ways to leave his self behind. He learned the way of self-alienation by pain, by voluntary suffering and how to overcome pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue. He travelled on the way of self-alienation by meditation, by removing from his thoughts any sense that he was perceiving what presented itself to him. This he learned, and he learned many other ways to travel, he left his self behind a thousand times, he persisted in the not-self for hours, for days. But although these ways led him away from his self they always, at the end, led him back to it. Siddhartha fled from his self a thousand times, spent time in nothingness, in the animal, in a stone, but he was never able to prevent his return, the hour of his return was not avoidable, and he would find himself, once again, in the light of the sun or the moon, in shade or in rain, and Siddhartha and his self were there once again, once again the suffering of the circle of life was placed upon him.

At his side lived Govinda, his shadow, travelling the same road, undergoing the same trials. They seldom spoke to each other, only when it was needed for their service and their exercises. At times they would go together to the villages in order to beg for food for themselves and their teachers.

“What do you think, Govinda,” Siddhartha once asked him as they were on their way to beg. “Do you think we have made any progress? Have we reached any of our targets?”

Govinda answered, “We have learned things, and we continue to learn. You will be a great samana, Siddhartha. You have learned every exercise very quickly, and the old samanas have been amazed at you. One day, Siddhartha, you will be a holy man.”

Siddhartha said, “That is not how I see it, my friend. All that I have learned so far I could have learned much faster and much easier in any bar where the whores are, my friend, among all the cheats and the gamblers.”

Govinda said, “That is what you say, my friend, but you know that Siddhartha is not some cattle driver, and that a samana is not some drunkard. The drunk can numb his senses, he can find escape and rest for a short time, but then he comes back from his stupor and finds that all is as it was before. He makes himself no wiser, he has gathered no knowledge any sort, he has climbed not one step higher.”

Siddhartha smiled and said, “I don’t know, I’ve never been a drunkard. But I do know that in all my exercises and contemplations I have only ever found a brief respite from suffering, and remained just as far away from wisdom and liberation as a child in its mother’s womb. I do know that, Govinda, I do know that.”

Another time, when Siddhartha and Govinda came out of the woods together and down to the village to beg for food for their brothers and teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said, “What about now, Govinda, do you think we are on the right path? Are we getting any closer to knowledge? Are we getting any closer to liberation? Or are we just going round in circles - we, who are trying to escape the circle of life?”

Govinda said, “We have learnt many things, Siddhartha, and there is still a lot more to learn. We are not going round in circles, we are mounting higher, the circle is a spiral, we have already climbed up many steps.”

Siddhartha answered, “How old do you think our eldest samana is, our venerable teacher?”

Govinda said, “He must be about sixty, our eldest samana.”

And Siddhartha, “He has reached the age of sixty, and he still has not reached Nirvana. He will be seventy, and then eighty, and you and me, we will become old in the same way and we will do our exercises, and we will fast, and we will meditate. But we will never reach Nirvana, he will not, we will not. Govinda, of all the samanas that there are, I do not think any one of them is likely to reach Nirvana. We find consolation, we find respite from pain, we learn the skills with which we deceive ourselves. But that which is essential, the way of ways, that is what we are not finding.”

“Do not utter such shocking words, Siddhartha!” said Govinda. “We are among so many learned men, so many brahmins, so many strict and venerable samanas, so many seekers, so many who strive with such effort, so many holy men; how could it be that none of these finds the way of ways?”

But Siddhartha replied in a voice that was sad as much as it was mocking, a gentle voice, a somewhat sad voice, somewhat mocking, “Soon now, Govinda, your friend will be leaving the way of the samanas along which he has travelled so far with you. I suffer from thirst, Govinda, and my thirst has not become any the less on this long way of the samanas. I have always been thirsty for knowledge, always been full of questions. I questioned the brahmins year after year, I sought knowledge in the holy vedas year after year, and I put questions to the pious samanas year after year. Perhaps, Govinda, it would have been just as good, just as clever and just as healing to go and put questions to the rhinoceros birds or the chimpanzees. I have taken much time to learn this, Govinda, and I am still not at the end of it, I have learned that learning is impossible! I believe that in fact there is nothing in anything that we could call ‘learning.’ There is only a kind of knowledge that is everywhere, my friend, and that is Atman. Atman is in me and in everything else that has existence. And so now I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the pursuit of knowledge, than learning.”

At this, Govinda stopped walking, raised his hands and said, “Siddhartha, please do not make your friend anxious with talk like this! What you are saying really does make me anxious in my heart. Think what you are saying; where would that leave the holiness of prayer, where would that leave the dignity of being a brahmin, where would that leave the holiness of the samanas if it were as you say, if it were not possible ever to learn?! Siddhartha, where would that leave anything on Earth that is holy or valuable or venerable?!”

Govinda quietly muttered a verse, a verse from one of the Upanishads:

The purest soul that deeply thinks and sinks itself in Atman, His blessed heart will have no words to tell it to the world.

Siddhartha, though, remained silent. He thought about the words that Govinda had just said to him, he thought about the words to their end.

Yes, he thought as he stood there with his head lowered, what would be left of all the things that seem holy to us? What would remain? What would be preserved? And he shook his head.

At an earlier time, when the two young men had lived with the samanas, and performed their exercises together for about three years, there came to them through many ways and turnings a message, a rumour, saying; One has appeared that will be called Gotama, the noble one, the buddha. He will have overcome the pain of the world in himself and brought the wheel of rebirth to a halt. With his followers he travels through the land, teaching as he goes, without property, without a home, without a wife, wearing the yellow garb of an ascetic but with joy on his brow, a holy man, and brahmans and princes bow their knee to him and become his pupils.

This legend, this rumour, this folk tale sounded out, raised itself like a scent far and wide, brahmins spoke of it in the cities, samanas spoke of it in the woods, the name of Gotama, the buddha, was repeated over and again in the ears of the young, in the good and in the evil, in praise and in contempt.

As when the plague is raging through a country and a rumour arises that somewhere there is a man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man whose word and whose breath alone is enough to heal anyone afflicted with it, when this rumour spreads through the land and all are talking of it, many believe it, many doubt it, but many set themselves straight on the road to seek out this wise man who can help them, so it was with the fragrant rumour of Gotama, the buddha, the wise man from the line of the sakyas. He possessed, so the believers said, the highest enlightenment, he remembered his previous lives, he had attained nirvana and would never more come back to the cycle of rebirth, never more submerge in the dark waters that carried the forms of the lower world. Many things majestic and incredible were reported of him, he had performed miracles, had overcome the Devil, had spoken with the gods. His enemies, however, and those who did not believe, said that this Gotama was a vain seducer, he spent his days in comfort, despised the acts of sacrifice, was without learning and performed neither exercise nor self-castigation.

Sweet was this legend of the buddha, magical was the aroma of these rumours. Diseased was the world, hard to bear was life - and look, there appeared to flow water from a new spring, a call of good news seemed to be heard, reassuring, mild, and full of noble promises. Everywhere that the rumour of the buddha was heard, in every part of the lands of India, the young men listened, felt longing, felt hope, and every pilgrim or stranger who came to the sons of brahmins in the towns and villages with news of him, the noble one, the sakyamuni, was welcome.

This legend even penetrated into the woods where the samanas lived, even to Siddhartha, even to Govinda, slowly, drop by drop, each drop laden with hope, each drop laden with doubt. They seldom spoke of it, as the eldest of the samanas was no friend of this legend. He had been taught that anyone who seemed to be a buddha had first become an ascetic and lived in the woods, and only then returned to the world of comfort and gaiety, and he had no faith in this Gotama at all.

“Siddhartha,” said Govinda to his friend one day. “I was in the village today and a brahman invited me into his house, and in his house was a brahmin’s son from Magadha who had seen this buddha with his own eyes and listened to his teachings. At that, the very breath in my lungs truly caused me pain and I thought: I too would like, both of us, Siddhartha and I, would like to experience these teachings, to learn from the mouth of one who had attained perfection! Tell me, my friend, should we not go and learn from the mouth of this buddha himself?”

Siddhartha answered, “Oh, Govinda, I had always thought Govinda would stay with the samanas, it was always my belief that it was his objective to live to the age of sixty or seventy and always practise the arts and exercises that the samanas display. But look at me now, I did not know Govinda well enough, I knew little of his heart. But now, dear friend, now you want to set out on a new path and go there, where the buddha spreads his teachings.”

Govinda answered, “You like to laugh at me. I hope you always keep laughing, Siddhartha! But do you not also feel the desire to hear these teachings rising within you, the wish to hear what is said? And did you not once say to me that you would not stay for long among the samanas to follow their way?”

At this Siddhartha laughed, in his way of laughing that took on a shadow of sorrow and a shadow of mockery, and said, “Quite right, Govinda, what you say is quite right, you have remembered it rightly. But maybe you should also remember something else you heard from me, that I had become tired and mistrustful of teachings and learning, and that my beliefs have little faith in the words that come to us from teachers. But anyway, my friend, I am willing to come and hear these teachings - even though, in my heart, I think we have already tasted the best fruits of them.”

Govinda answered, “Your readiness brings joy to my heart. But tell me, how can that be possible? How could the teachings of Gotama have given us their best fruits even before we have tasted them?”

Siddhartha answered, “Let us enjoy these fruits and wait to see what happens, Govinda! But we can already be thankful to Gotama in that his fruits are calling us away from the samanas! Perhaps he has other fruit to offer, and better fruit my friend. Let us keep peace in our hearts and wait to see if this is so.”

That very day Siddhartha told the eldest of the samanas of his decision to leave him. He told him with all the humility and modesty as befits a junior and a pupil. The samana, however fell into a rage at the young men’s decision to leave, he raised his voice and used foul language.

Govinda was shocked and embarrassed, but Siddhartha put his mouth to Govinda’s ear and whispered, “Now I will show the elder that I have learned something from him.”

Siddhartha stood close in front of the samana, gathered his own spirit, captured the gaze of the old man with his own gaze, and thereby did he enthrall him, made him dumb, deprived him of his will, subjected him to his own will, and without a word he ordered him to do as he commanded. The old man was unable to speak, unable to move his eyes, unable to direct his own will, his arms hung loose, he became powerless and was subject to the magic worked by Siddhartha. Siddhartha’s thoughts overpowered those of the samana, he had to carry out whatever commands they gave him. And so the old man bowed down several times, performed gestures of blessing and humbly stammered out wishes for a good journey. And the young men replied by thanking him for his prostrations, thanked him for his good wishes and with those greetings made their departure.

On the way Govinda said, “Oh Siddhartha, you learned more from the samanas than I had realised. It is not easy, not easy at all, to bewitch an ancient samana. I am sure that if you had stayed with them you would soon have learned to walk on water.”

“Why would I want to walk on water?” said Siddhartha. “If the ancient samanas want to do tricks like that they can keep them!”

GOTAMA

In the city of Savathi every child knew the name of the noble buddha, and every house was ready to fill the begging bowls of Gotama’s disciples when they made their silent requests. Near the city was the grove of Jetavana. This wood had been given to Gotama and his followers by Anathapindika, a rich businessman who was devoted to the noble one, and it was the place that Gotama liked to visit most.

All the stories and all the answers that the two young ascetics had heard in their search for Gotama had directed them to this place. When they arrived in Savathi they stood at the door of the first house silently begging for food, which was given them. Siddhartha asked the woman who had offered them the food:

“Generous lady, we would like to learn where the most venerable one, the buddha, spends his time, for we are two samanas from the woods and have come to see him, the perfect one, and to hear the teachings from his mouth.”

The woman said, “You have certainly arrived at the right place, samanas from the woods. You should know that Jetavana, the garden of Anathapindikas, is where the noble one spends his time. You will be able to spend the night there, pilgrims, as there is even enough room there for the countless many who flood to this place to hear the teachings from his mouth.”

This was pleasing news to Govinda, and full of joy he declared, “That is good, so we have reached our destination and our journey is at its end! But tell us, mother of pilgrims, do you know him, the buddha, have you seen him with your own eyes?”

The woman said, “Many have seen him, the noble one. Many times I have seen him as he went on his way through the streets and alleys, silent in his yellow robes, silent as he showed his begging bowl at the doors of houses and, as he left those places, his begging bowl full.”

Govinda listened with joy and wanted to put many questions and to hear more. But Siddhartha urged that they should go on their way. They said thank you and left, and had hardly any need to ask the way for many pilgrims were on their way to Jetavana, as well as monks from Gotama’s community. They arrived there in the night time, there was a continuous flow of visitors arriving, calling to each other, talking about who was looking for shelter and who had found it. The two samanas, used to life in the woods, found a place to rest quickly and quietly and remained there till morning.

When the sun rose they were astonished to see the size of the crowd, believers or the curious, who had spent the night here. Monks in their yellow robes wandered along all the paths of the beautiful grove, here and there under the trees sat people deep in meditation or engaged in spiritual discussion. The shady garden was like a city, full of people swarming like bees. Most of the monks were leaving with their begging bowls in order to collect food for midday, when they would have their only meal of the day. Even the buddha himself, the enlightened one, made a habit of going out to beg each morning.

Siddhartha saw him, and as quickly as if he had been pointed out by a god, he knew who it was. He saw him, a slight man in a yellow cloak, making his quiet way with his begging bowl in his hand.

“Govinda, look!” whispered Siddhartha. “Just there, that is the buddha.”

Govinda stared at the monk in the yellow robe, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other monks there. And soon Govinda could see it too: it was him. And they followed him and kept him in their sight.

The buddha followed his path with humility and deep in thought, the peaceful expression on his face was neither gay nor sad, it seemed to show a gentle inward contentment. With a hidden smile, quiet, peaceful, not unlike a healthy child, the buddha wandered on, wearing his robes and placing his feet in the same way as all his monks, in the way that was prescribed. But his face, his gait, his quiet lowered eyes, his hands hanging quietly from his arms, and even every finger on his quietly hanging hands spoke of peace, spoke of perfection, sought nothing, copied nothing, breathed gently with a peace that could not fade, in a light that could not fade, a peace that could not be touched.

So, Gotama walked on slowly towards the town where he would gather alms, and the two samanas knew him simply from the perfection of his peace, the stillness of his form where no searching, no desire, no imitation, no striving could be seen, only light and peace.

“Today, we will hear the teachings from his own mouth,” said Govinda.

Siddhartha made no answer. He had less curiosity about the teachings, he did not believe they would teach him anything new, even though, like Govinda, he had heard many times about what the teachings of this buddha contained, albeit from the reports he had heard at second or third hand. But he looked attentively at Gotama’s head, at his shoulders, at his feet, at his hand as it hung there without moving, and it seemed to him that every part of every finger of that hand held a lesson, spoke, breathed, was fragrant and shone with truth. This man, this buddha, was truthful down to every movement of every finger. This man was holy. Siddhartha had never felt such veneration for anyone, he had never loved anyone as much as this man.

The two of them followed the buddha into the town and then they quietly turned back, as they too hoped to obtain food for themselves before the end of day. They saw Gotama as he too came back, saw him surrounded by his followers as they took their meal - what he ate was not enough to feed a bird - and they saw him withdraw into the shade of the mango trees.

But when evening came, when the heat of the day had lessened and everyone in the camp became more active and gathered together, they heard the buddha speak. They heard his voice, and even that was a thing of perfection, of perfect stillness, of complete peace. Gotama taught the lesson of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the way that leads to the removal of suffering. His speech flowed on, calm, peaceful and clear, it was. Life was sorrow, the world was full of suffering, but release from suffering could be found: release would be found by him who followed the way of the buddha. The noble one spoke in a voice that was gentle but firm, he taught of the four principal doctrines, he taught of the eight-fold path, the circle of reincarnation, his voice, clear and quiet, remained above his listeners like a light, like a star in the firmament.

Night had fallen before the buddha came to the end of his speech. Many pilgrims came forward and asked to be accepted into his community, sought refuge in the teachings. Gotama did accept them, with the words, “You have ingested the teachings well, they were conveyed to you well. Come, then, among us and walk in holiness, that you may prepare an end to all sorrow.”

Then Govinda, too, the shy one, was seen to come forward and he said, “I, too, seek refuge with the noble one and his teachings,” and asked to be accepted among the buddha’s followers, and he was accepted.

Soon thereafter, as the buddha had withdrawn for his night’s rest, Govinda went to Siddhartha with great enthusiasm and said, “I am not entitled to reproach you for anything. We have both heard the noble one, we have both received his teachings. Govinda heard the teaching, he has taken refuge in them. But you, revered one, will you not take the path of liberation? Will you delay, will you continue to wait?”

When he realised what Govinda had said Siddhartha woke as if he had been sleeping. Then, gently and with no mockery in his voice, he said, “Govinda, my friend, now you have taken the first step, now you have chosen your path. You have always been my friend, Govinda, you have always followed me one step behind. I have often asked myself whether Govinda would one day take a step of his own, without me, from his own soul. Now see, you have become a man and chosen your own way. I hope you will follow it to its end, my friend! I hope you will find liberation!”

Govinda still did not fully understand, and impatiently repeated his question: “Speak, dear friend, I beg of you, speak! Tell me what cannot be different, tell me my learned friend that you too will take refuge with the noble buddha!”

Siddhartha lay his hand on Govinda’s shoulder. “You have failed to hear my deepest wish for you, Govinda. I will repeat if for you: I hope you will follow your path to its end, my friend! I hope you will find liberation!”

At that moment Govinda saw that his friend had left him, and he began to weep.

“Siddhartha!” he implored.

Siddhartha’s reply was friendly. “Govinda, do not forget that you now are one of the samanas of the buddha. You have forsaken your home and your parents, forsaken origins and possessions, by your own free will you have forsaken friendship. This is what is said in the teachings, this is what is said by the buddha. This is what you have chosen for yourself. Tomorrow, Govinda, I will leave you.”

The two friends wandered long among the trees, long they lay but found no sleep. And Govinda asked his friend over and over again why he would not take refuge in the teachings of Gotama, what fault could he find in these teachings. But Siddharth always rejected his insistence and said, “Learn to be in peace, Govinda. The teachings of the noble one are very good. How should I find any fault in them?”

As morning was breaking one of the buddha’s followers, one of his eldest monks, went through the garden and summoned all them who had newly chosen to take refuge in the teachings. They were to put on their yellow robes and receive their first instruction in the teachings and duties of their new status. Govinda ran to Siddhartha, embraced his childhood friend on more time, and went to join the ranks of the novices.

Siddhartha, however, wandered among the trees, deep in thought.

While he was there he came across Gotama, the noble one. Siddhartha greeted him with veneration. There was so much peace and goodness to be seen in the buddha’s eyes that the young man took courage and asked the venerable one’s permission to speak to him. The noble one gave his assent with a silent nod.

Siddhartha said, “Noble one, I was yesterday privileged to hear your wonderful teachings. I had come here from afar with a friend to hear them. My friend now will stay among your followers and take refuge with you. I, however, will start my pilgrimage anew.”

“You are free to do as you wish,” said the noble one politely.

“In speaking to you I have been more bold than I should have been,” Siddhartha continued, “but I would not want to depart from the noble one without having given him my sincere thoughts. Would the noble one be willing to give me another moment of his time to hear me?”

The buddha gave his assent with a silent nod.

Siddhartha said, “There is something, most venerable one, that I admired most of all in what you said. Everything in your teachings is perfectly clear and supported with proof; you depict the world as a perfect chain, never broken anywhere on its length, an eternal chain made up of causes and effects. This has never been made so clear, never set out so irrefutably; the heart of every brahman must surely beat at a higher level when he has heard your teachings and first sees the world of perfect coherence, without omissions, as clear as crystal, not dependent on chance, not dependent on any gods. This could be good or bad, could bring joy or sorrow to life, but it is not something we need to consider, it could well be that it is not of basic importance - but the unity of the world, that all events are inter-related, the flow of existence that embraces all things great and small, the law of cause and effect, existence and death, all these things shine brightly out from your noble teachings, o perfect one. But there is a place in your own teachings where this cohesion, this sound argument that governs all things is interrupted, there is a small hole where something strange, something new, something not previously there flows into this world, it is something that cannot be shown, cannot be proved: this is your teaching about not being overcome by the world, your teaching about liberation. With this tiny hole, with this tiny intrusion the entire coherent and eternal world-order is once again broken down and cannot be maintained. I hope you will forgive me for voicing this objection.”

Gotama had listened to him still and unmoving. Now, with his benevolent voice, with his clear and polite voice, the perfect one spoke: “You have listened to the teachings, brahmin’s son, and it is good that you have thought so deeply about them. You have found a gap in them, a mistake. I hope you will continue to think about the teachings, you have a thirst for knowledge, but you should be warned of the thickets of beliefs and of quibbles around words. Beliefs are not important, they can be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can stay attached to them or throw them away. But the teachings that you heard from me are not beliefs and I was not trying to explain the world to them who have a thirst for knowledge. I was attempting something quite different, I was attempting to show how to gain liberation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else.”

“I hope you will not be cross with me, noble one,” the young man said. “I have no wish to argue with you but to argue about words, this is why I have spoken to you in this way. You are certainly quite right, beliefs alone are not of great importance. But allow me to say one thing more: I have never for a moment had any doubts about you. I have never for a moment doubted that you are a buddha, that you have reached the end of your path, the highest objective that so many thousands of brahmins and brahmins’ sons pursue. You have found liberation from death. You have attained this by your own searching, by travelling your own path, by thought, by meditation, by knowledge, by enlightenment. You have not attained it by listening to the teachings of others! And - this is what I have come to believe, noble one - nobody can ever attain liberation by listening to the teachings of others! Nobody, venerable one, will come to understand what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment by hearing your words and your teachings! The enlightened one, the buddha, teaches many things about how to live a good and honest life and how to avoid evil, but the teaching that is so clear, that is so noble, is not there: the noble one does not give teaching about the secret that he alone has experienced, he alone out of hundreds of thousands. This is what I thought, what I perceived, when I heard your teachings. This is the reason I will continue in my wanderings - not to find other teachings which may be better, for I know there are none, but to abandon all teachings and all teachers and either to attain my goal alone or to die. But, noble one, I will often think back to this day and this hour, for my eyes have seen a man of great holiness.”

The buddha looked quietly down at the ground, the buddha’s face, peaceful but inscrutable, shone with perfect serenity.

“I hope your thoughts,” the venerable one said slowly, “are not mistaken! May you arrive at your objective! But tell me: have you seen how many samanas I have, how many brothers who have taken refuge in my teachings? And do you think, samana from a foreign place, do you think all of these would be better off if they abandoned the teachings and went back to life in the world with all its enjoyments?”

“Such a thought is far from me,” Siddhartha exclaimed. “I hope they will all remain with the teachings, I hope they will reach their goal! It is not up to me to judge how others lead their lives. I can only judge my own life, I must choose for myself, must reject for myself. We samanas seek liberation from our selves, noble one. I fear, venerable one, that if I were one of your followers I might only seem to bring my self to peace, that my liberation would be illusory and my self would in fact continue to exist and grow bigger, as then I would have the teachings, would have my followers, would have my love for you, would have the community of monks and all this I would have made into my self!”

With a half-smile, with unshakeable clarity and friendliness, Gotama looked the stranger in the eye and took his leave of him with barely noticeable gesture.

“You are clever, samana,” the venerable one said. “Your arguments, my friend, are very clever. Take care that you do not become too clever!”

The buddha walked slowly away, and his look and his half smile remained forever engraved in Siddhartha’s memory.

I have never before seen anyone look and smile, sit and walk, like this man, he thought to himself. I truly hope that I, too, will be able to look and to smile, to sit and to walk as he does, so free, so venerable, so hidden, so open, so child-like and private. It is only the man who has penetrated to his innermost self who is truly able to look and to walk in this way. I, too, will do my utmost to penetrate to my innermost self.

I have seen one man, Siddhartha thought, just one, to whom I had to lower my eyes. I will not lower my eyes to any other man, not anyone. I will not be drawn into any teachings, as I was not drawn into the teachings of this man.

I was robbed by this buddha, Siddhartha thought, he robbed me, but he gave me much more. He robbed me of my friend, of him who had faith in me and now has faith in him, of him who was my shadow and is now the shadow of Gotama. But he made the gift to me, to Siddhartha, of myself.

AWAKENING

As Siddhartha left the grove where the buddha, the perfect one, remained behind, where Govinda remained behind, he felt that he was also leaving behind his life so far, that it was separating itself from him. This sensation filled him completely, and he thought about it as he slowly walked on. He pondered deeply as if sinking through deep water, he allowed himself to drop to the bottom of this feeling to the place where its causes lay, as it seemed to him that identifying causes was to think, and that is the only way to make sensations into knowledge and avoid losing them altogether, the only way to make them substantial, the only way to make them shine and show what they contain.

He pondered as he walked slowly on. He concluded that he was no longer a youth but had become a man. He concluded that something had left him like a snake that sloughs its skin, that something within him was no longer there for him, something that had been with him all through his youth and had belonged to him: the wish to have a teacher and to hear teachings. He had even departed from last teacher who had come to him on his way, the highest and wisest of teachers, the holiest of them all, the buddha, he had had to separate himself from him, he had been unable to accept his teachings.

Siddhartha continued to ponder as he walked, and his movement became slower as he asked himself: But what was it that you wanted to learn from the teachers? What was it that those teachers who spent so much time giving you their lessons were nonetheless unable to teach you? And Siddhartha found an answer: What I wanted to learn was my self, I wanted to learn the meaning and the essence of my self. I wanted to be rid of my self, wanted to overcome my self. But I was not able to overcome it, was able only to cheat it, was able only to flee from it, to hide from it. There is truly nothing in the world that has occupied my thoughts as much as this self of mine, this puzzle that I am alive, that I am separate from one and all, severed from them, that I am Siddhartha! And there is nothing in the world that I know less about than myself, about Siddhartha!

Siddhartha walked more slowly as he pondered and then, gripped by these thoughts, came to a stop. And at that moment a new thought sprang out from them: There is a reason why I know nothing about myself, a cause for Siddhartha remaining so strange and unfamiliar to me, just one cause; I was in fear of myself, I was in flight from myself! I sought Atman, I sought Brahman, I had resolved to break my self apart, to flay it apart so that in its innermost, least known part I could find the kernel within all shells, Atman, life, the divine, the ultimate. But in the process I lost myself.

Siddhartha suddenly opened his eyes and looked around him, a smile covered his face, and a profound sense of waking from a long period of dreams flowed through him all the way down to his toes. And as soon as he began to walk on he walked quickly, like a man who knows what he has to do.

He took in a deep breath and thought to himself: “I will not let Siddhartha get away from me now! I will no longer let my thoughts and my life begin with Atman and the suffering of the world. I will no longer kill myself and dismember myself in order to see behind the ruins and find a secret there. I will no longer take teachings from yoga-veda, nor from atharva-veda, nor the ascetics nor any other kind of teaching. I will learn by myself alone, be a student of myself, learn to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.”

He looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time. The world was beautiful, filled with many colours, strange and puzzling was the world! Blue here, yellow here, green here, sky and river flowed, trees and hills reached upwards, everything beautiful, everything puzzling and magic, and in the middle of it all was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the way to himself. All this, all this yellow and blue, river and wood, entered into Siddhartha through his eyes for the first time, it was no longer the sorcery of Mara, no longer the veil of maya, no longer the meaningless and random diversity of the world of delusion that the deep thinking brahmin despises, that the deep thinking brahmin scorns in his search for unity. Blue was blue, river was river, this was where the divine lived hidden, the blueness and the river lay within Siddhartha but this was how the divine showed itself and it was nonetheless one; yellow here, blue here, the sky there, the woods there, and here to be Siddhartha. Meaning and essence were not somewhere behind things, they were within them, in everything.

“I have been so deaf, so dull-witted!” he thought as he hurried forward. “When a man reads scripture in pursuit of its meaning he does not despise the ciphers and letters, calling them deceitful, random or meaningless shells, he reads it, he studies it and loves it, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own essence, I did despise the ciphers and letters for the sake of a meaning I thought I knew beforehand, when I saw the world, when I touched the world, I called it delusion, I called my eye and my tongue random and worthless appearances. No, this is in the past now, I have awoken, I have truly awoken and today I am born for the first time.”

As Siddhartha had this thought he suddenly stopped walking again, as if there lay a snake in front of him on the path, he also awoke to this insight: I am not now that which I once was, I am no longer an ascetic, I am no longer a priest, I am no longer a brahmin. So what should I do at home in the house of my father? Study? Perform sacrifices? Cultivate meditation? All this lies now in the past, all this is no longer on my path.

For suddenly there was something else that had become clear to him: He, who had in fact become like one awoken or newly born, he would have to start his life anew and from its very beginning. That very morning, as he left the grove of Jetavana, the grove of the noble one, already awaking, already on the way to himself, it was his intention, an intention that seemed to be natural and a matter of course, that he would bring his years of living as an ascetic to an end and return home to his father. But now, only now at this moment when he stopped walking as if a snake lay on the path in front of him, he awoke also to this insight: I am no longer the person I once was, I am no longer an ascetic, I am no longer a priest, I am no longer a brahmin. So what should I do if I go back home to my father? Study? Perform sacrifices? Cultivate meditation? These things are all in the past, these things no longer lie before me on my way.

Siddhartha stood there motionless, and for one moment, for one intake of breath, his heart remained frozen, he felt it freezing in his breast inside him like a small animal, a bird or a hare, as he saw how alone he was. For many years he had been without a home and had not felt it. Now he did feel it. Until now, even when immersed in the deepest meditation, he had been his father’s son, a brahmin, a man of high status, a spiritual man. Now he was merely Siddhartha, the awoken one, nothing more. He drew in a deep breath, and for a moment he froze and shuddered. No-one was as alone as he was. No nobleman who did not belong among noblemen, no handworker who did not belong among handworkers but found refuge among them, sharing his life with theirs and speaking their language. No brahmin who did not count as a brahmin and lived among them, no ascetic who found no refuge in his status as a samana, and not even the hermit lost deepest in the woods was single or alone, even he was surrounded by the things he belonged to, even he belonged to a certain condition that made that place his home. Govinda had become a monk and had a thousand monks as his brothers, he wore his robes, believed his beliefs and spoke his language. But he, Siddhartha, where did he belong? Whose life would he share? Whose language would he speak?

From this moment on, when the world around him was melting away, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, from this moment of coldness and despair, Siddhartha always rose up more his self than he had been, more concentrated than he had been. He felt: This was the final spasm of awakening, the last cramp of his birth. And he immediately stepped out again, began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer going home, no longer going to his father, no longer going back.

PART TWO

Dedicated to Wilhem Gundert, my cousin in Japan.

KAMALA

As Siddhartha went on his way the world was transformed and his heart was enchanted, and with every step he learnt something new. He saw the sun rise above the trees on the mountains and saw it set behind distant palmy beaches. At night he saw the stars ranged across the sky and the crescent moon like a boat swimming in a sea of blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, crags, herbs, flowers, streams and rivers as they flowed, morning dew that glistened in the bushes, lofty mountains blue and pale in the distance, birds and bees both gave their song, the wind blew, soughing in the silver fields of rice. All of this, bright with colour everywhere, had always been there, the sun and moon had always shone, rivers rushed and bees did buzz, but for Siddhartha until then all of this had been nothing but a fleeting and delusory veil before his eyes, something to be mistrusted, something to be pierced and destroyed by the intellect, for it was something that did not exist, for existence lay beyond that which could be seen. But now his eye was free, it lingered on this side of what could be seen, it looked and it acknowledged what could be seen, it sought its home in this world, no longer sought the essence, did not strive for the beyond. Seen in this way, without searching, so simple, so child-like, the world was beautiful. The moon and stars were beautiful, rivers and shores were beautiful, woods and crags, goats and beetles, flowers and butterflies. Beautiful and lovely it was, so to go through the world, so child-like, so awake, so open to the things around him, so without mistrust. The sun burnt on his head differently, the shade of the woods cooled him differently, the streams and ponds tasted differently, marrow and banana tasted differently. The days were short, the nights were short, every hour flew swift away like a sailboat on the water, the sailboat full of treasure, full of joy. Siddhartha saw a troop of monkeys travelling in the branches of the forest canopy, he heard their wild and greedy song. Siddhartha saw a ram pursue the ewe and mating with her. In a lake of reeds he saw the pike pursue his prey to still his evening hunger, the school of young fish who, in fear, rushed anxiously, flapping and flashing above the water, strength and passion forced their scent from the rapid-swirling water, from the fierce tumult worked up by their pursuer.

All these things had always been, and he had not seen them; he had not been with them. Now he was with them, he belonged to them. Light and shade ran through his eyes, through his heart ran star and moon.

On his way Siddhartha also thought about all the things he had experienced in the garden of Jetavana, the teachings he had heard there, the divine buddha, the farewell from Govinda, his conversation with the noble one. He thought again about the words that he had himself said to the noble one, remembered every word, and was astonished to suddenly realise that he had said things he had not known till then. What he had said to Gotama: his own, the buddha’s, treasures and secrets, these were not the teachings, the ineffable was the teaching, something that could not be taught, what he experienced at the moment of his enlightenment - yes, this was the thing that he was now striving for, what he was only now beginning to experience. The thing that he had to experience now for himself. He had probably long known that he was his own Atman, the same eternal essence as Brahman. But it was something he had never really found for himself because he had tried to capture it with the web of thought. The body too, could certainly not be the thing he sought, nor playing games with thinking, not thought, not understanding, not the wisdom that has been learned, not the art that has been learned that allows you to draw conclusions and spin new thoughts from the ones already spun. No, even this world of thoughts was still on this side and it led nowhere to kill the random self of the senses, only to cram the random self full of thoughts and doctrines. Both of them, thoughts and senses, were very beautiful but both of them hid the ultimate sense, both of them were worth listening to, worth playing with, neither should be either despised or over-valued, both of them offered to let you hear the secret voice of the innermost. There was nothing he strove for other than what the voice told him to strive for, nothing he would dwell on other than where the voice told him to dwell. Why had Gotama sat under the bo tree at that moment of moments where enlightenment came upon him? He had heard a voice, a voice in his own heart which told him to seek rest under this tree, he had not chosen rather to mortify his flesh, to perform sacrifice, ablution nor prayer, he had not sought food nor drink nor sleep nor dreams, he had done as the voice told him. This obedience was the one thing needed, not any command from outside himself, just the voice, to be ready, that was good, that was needed, nothing else was needed.

In the night, while he slept by the river in the ferry man’s straw hut, Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda stood before him in the yellow robes of the ascetic. Govinda looked sad, and sadly he asked, “Why have you abandoned me?” At this Siddhartha embraced Govinda, threw his arms around him, and as he drew him to his breast and kissed him it was Govinda no longer, it was a woman, and from the woman’s robe welled out her full breast at which Siddhartha put his mouth and drank, sweet and strong was the taste of the milk from this breast. It tasted of woman and man, of sunshine and forest, of beast and flower, of every fruit, of every joy. It made him drunk and unaware of himself. When Siddhartha woke, the pale river shimmered with light that came in through the door of the hut, and from the forest came the deep, dark, distinct call of an owl.

At the start of day Siddhartha asked his host, the ferry man, to take him across the river. The ferry man put him on his bamboo raft and took him across the river as the red light of morning shimmered on the expanse of water.

“This is a beautiful river,” he said to his companion.

“Yes,” said the ferry man, “it is a very beautiful river, I love it above all else. I have many times listened to what it has to say, many times looked into its eyes, and it has always had something to teach me. There is a great deal that you can learn from a river.”

“Thank you for your help,” said Siddhartha as he stepped onto the other shore. “I have nothing I could give you for your hospitality, my friend, nothing I could pay you. I have no home to live in, I am the son of a brahmin and a samana.”

“That was easy to see,” said the ferry man, “and I never did expect any payment from you, no gift for my hospitality. You can give me something another time.”

“You think so?” said Siddhartha with a laugh.

“Certainly. That too is something I have learnt from the river: everything comes back again! Even you, samana, you will be back again. So, farewell! My fee can be your friendship. Think of me always when you make sacrifice to the gods.”

Smiling, they took their leave of each other. Smiling, Siddhartha was glad of the friendship and the friendliness of the ferry man. “He is so like Govinda,” he smiling thought, “everyone I come across on my ways is like Govinda. Everyone gives me thanks, although it is they who have the right to receive thanks from me. Everyone is humble, everyone wishes to be my friend, everyone wishes to obey me and to think little. People are like children.”

Around midday he was walking through a village. In the street and in front of its mud huts there were children running about, playing with marrow seeds and mussels, they shouted and played rough games with each other, but when this strange samana appeared they became timid and ran away. As it left the village the path led across a stream and there was a young woman kneeling at the bank of the stream washing clothes. As Siddhartha greeted her she raised her head and looked up at him with a smile so that he could see the sparkling whiteness of her eyes. He declared a blessing on her, as is usual among travellers, and asked her how far it still was till he would reach the big city. At that, she stood up and went up to him, her face looked young and the light sparkled appealingly on her moist lips. She exchanged a few jokey words with him, asked if he was hungry, and whether it was true that samanas sleep alone in the woods and are not allowed to have any women with them. As she said this she placed her left foot on his right foot and made the kind of movement a woman makes when she is leading a man into that sort of amorous pleasure which the books call “climbing a tree.” Siddhartha felt his blood become warm, and as his dream came back into his mind at that moment he leant down slightly towards the woman and, with his lips, he kissed the brown tip of her breast. When he looked up he saw the smile on her face, full of desire, and that her narrowed eyes yearned for him.

Siddhartha also felt desire and felt the source of his gender as it began to move; but he had never touched a woman until then and he hesitated a moment before his hands were ready to reach out for her. And in that moment he shivered as he heard a voice from deep within him, and the voice said no. Then all the charm faded from the young woman’s smiling face, all he saw was the damp gaze of a woman impelled by lust like an animal. He remained friendly, stroked her cheek, turned away from her and disappeared nimbly into the bamboo forest, leaving her disappointed.

Before the day had passed into evening, Siddhartha reached a big city, and he looked forward to having human company. He had lived long in the forests, the straw hut of the ferry man where he had slept the previous night was the first time he had slept under any roof for a long time.

Before he entered the town, near a pleasant wood enclosed within a fence, the wanderer met with a group of servants laden with baskets. In the middle of them was their mistress on a decorated palanquin borne by four men, she was seated on red cushions and protected from the sun under a brightly coloured roof. Siddhartha remained at the entrance to the wooded pleasure garden and watched the procession as it passed, saw the servants, the maids, the baskets, the palanquin, and on the palanquin saw the lady. Under a high tower of black hair he saw a face that was very fair, very tender and very wise, he saw a mouth that was pink like a freshly opened fig, eyebrows that were carefully tended and painted into tall arches, eyes that were intelligent and dark, a tall, a fair neck that rose up from the green and golden clothing around it, fair hands that lay at rest, long and slender with wide gold rings over the joints.

Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was, and his heart laughed. He bowed deeply as the palanquin came near, and as he righted himself he looked into that fair and noble face, into the intelligent eyes with their arched brows, he breathed in a fragrance he did not know. The beautiful woman smiled and briefly nodded to him before she disappeared into the wood, followed by her servers.

That is a good portent for the city I am now entering, thought Siddhartha. He felt the urge to go into the wood but then thought better of it, and only then did he become aware of how the servers and maids at the entrance had looked at him, with what contempt, with what mistrust, with what dismissal.

I am still a samana, he thought, still an ascetic and a beggar. I will not, as such, be allowed to stay, not be allowed into the wood. And he laughed.

As soon as he met someone on the road he asked about the wood and what the name of that woman was. He learned that it was the grove of Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that she owned a house in the city as well as the wood.

Siddhartha then made his way into the city. Now he knew where he should go.

In order to arrive there he allowed the city to drink him in, followed the crowds in the streets, stood still in the city squares, rested on the stone steps beside the river. As evening fell he made friends with a barber’s assistant whom he had seen at work in the shade of a dome. He came across him later that day as he prayed in a temple of Vishnu, and told him the stories about Vishnu and Lakshmi. He slept that night among the boats on the river and then, early in the morning, before the first customers arrived in his shop, he had the barber’s assistant shave him, cut his hair, comb his hair and dress it with fine oil. Then he went down to bathe in the river.

Late that afternoon when the beautiful Kamala was approaching her grove on her palanquin she found Siddhartha waiting at the entrance. He bowed to her and accepted her greeting to him. When the train of servants had nearly passed him he caught the attention of the last of them and asked him to inform his mistress that there was a young brahmin who wished to speak with her. Siddhartha waited, after a while the servant came back, invited him to follow him, led him in silence into a pavilion where Kamala lay on a couch and left him alone with her.

“Was it not you who stood outside there yesterday and offered me greeting? Kamala asked.

“Indeed, I did see you yesterday and offer you greeting.”

“But did you not have a beard yesterday, and long hair and dust in your hair?”

“You observed well, you saw everything. You saw Siddhartha, the brahmin’s son who left his home to become a samana and spent three years as a samana. Now, though, I have left that path and come to this city, and you were the first to greet me her, even before I had set foot in it. I can say that it is to you that I have come, o Kamala! You are the first woman with whom Siddhartha has spoken without his eyes lowered. I will never again lower my eyes when I meet with a beautiful woman.”

Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacock feathers. And she asked, “And has Siddhartha come to me just to say this?”

“To say this and to give you my thanks for your beauty. And if it will not displease you, Kamala, I should like to ask you to be my friend and my teacher, for I still know nothing of the arts in which you are so expert.”

At this Kamala laughed out loud.

“This has never happened to me before, my friend, a samana comes to me out of the woods and wants to learn from me! It has never happened to me that a long-haired samana in a ragged loin cloth has come to me! There are many young men who do come to me, some of them are even the sons of brahmins, but they come wearing beautiful clothes and expensive shoes, they have perfumed hair and a purse full of money. That is what the young men look like who come to me, samana.”

Siddhartha said, “I am only beginning to learn from you. But I already learned from you yesterday. I have had my beard nicely removed, I have combed my hair and have oil in it. The things I lack are the things least important, most excellent lady: fine clothes, fine shoes, money in a purse. Do be aware that Siddhartha has undertaken much harder tasks than trifles like that, and has achieved them. Why should I not now achieve the task I undertook yesterday? To be your friend and to learn the pleasures of love from you! You will see what a good student I am, Kamala, I have learned many thing that are harder than what you have to teach me. Do you say, then, that Siddhartha is not good enough for you as he is, with oil in his hair but without clothes, without shoes, without money?”

Kamala laughed out loud and said, “No, worthy young man, he is not good enough! Not yet! He must have clothes, beautiful clothes, shoes must he have, fine shoes, he must have plentiful money in his purse, and he must bring presents for Kamala. Do you understand now, samana from the woods? Do you see?”

“I see it well,” Siddhartha exclaimed. “How could I have failed to see what has just come from a mouth such as this? Your mouth is like a fig freshly broken open, Kamala. My mouth, too, is red and fresh, it will suit your mouth well, you will see. But, beautiful Kamala, are you not at all afraid of this samana from the woods who has come to you to learn the arts of love?”

“Why should I be afraid of a samana, a stupid samana, come from the woods where the jackals live and who still has no idea of what women are?”

“The samana is strong, though. He fears nothing. He would be able to force you, handsome girl. He could rob you. He could hurt you.”

“No, samana, I’m not afraid of that. Has a samana or a brahmin ever been afraid that someone might come and attack him and rob him of his learning, his piety or his deep understanding? No, for those things belong to him alone, and he gives them to others only when he wants to give and to whom he wants to give. It is just the same for Kamala and the joys of love. Kamala’s mouth is red and lovely, but if you try to kiss it against Kamala’s will you will have not a drop of sweetness from it, even though it knows how to give so much sweetness. Siddhartha, you want to learn, so here is something for you to learn: You can beg for love, buy love, receive love as a gift, you can find it on the street, but you cannot steal love. This way that you have invented for yourself is wrong. No, and it would be such a pity if a charming young man such as yourself grabbed for it in a way that is so mistaken.”

Siddhartha smiled and bowed to her. “Yes, Kamala, you are quite right! It would be a pity. It would be an awful pity. No, I do not want any drop of sweetness from your mouth to be wasted on me, nor any drop of mine wasted on you! Only one option remains for us. Siddhartha must come back when he has the things that, at present, are lacking: clothes, shoes, money. But, noble Kamala, tell me, can you not give me just one more piece of advice?”

“A piece of advice Why not? Who would not be happy to give a piece of advice to a poor and innocent samana, just come down from the woods where the jackals live?”

“So tell me, dear Kamala, tell me where I should go so that I can obtain these three things as quickly as possible?”

“There are many who would like to know that, my friend. You will have to do what you have learnt to do, and take money for it, and clothes, and shoes. There is no other way for a poor man to obtain money. What can you do then?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

“Is that all?”

“That is all. Wait, I can write poetry too. Will you give me a kiss in exchange for a poem?”

“Yes, I will give you a kiss, if I like the poem. What is the title of this poem then?”

Siddhartha thought about it for a moment, and then he spoke these verses:

The shadowy grove where went the lovely Kamala,
The entrance there, where stood the brown-skin’d samana,
There bowed he deep, he saw the lotus flower,
And Kamala thanked him with smiles and graciousness.
‘Tis lovely, thought he, to offer praise to gods,
‘Tis lovelier still to sacrifice all for her.
The lovely Kamala clapped her bangled hands.

“Your verses are lovely, brown samana, and indeed I have nothing to lose if I let you have a kiss for them.”

With a gesture of her eyes she drew him to herself, he leant his face to hers and put his mouth on her mouth, which was like a fig newly broken open. Kamala’s kiss was long, and Siddhartha felt deep astonishment at how she taught him, at how wise she was, at how she mastered him, pushed him away and drew him back, and at how this first kiss would be followed by many more, a long, well ordered, well-tested series of kisses, each of them different from the last, that awaited him. He remained standing, breathing deeply, and at that moment he was amazed at the fullness of knowledge, the fullness of things worth knowing, that promised themselves to him in front of his eyes.

“Your verses are lovely,” Kamala declared, “if I were rich I would give you a piece of gold for them. Though you will find it very hard to gather as much money as you need by making up verses. You will, after all, need such a lot of money if you want to be the friend of Kamala.”

“Th..the way you kiss, Kamala!” Siddhartha stammered.

“Yes, I am good at that, aren’t I. That is why I am never short of clothes and shoes and jewelry and all those nice things. But what will become of you? Can you think of nothing else but thinking and fasting and making up verses?”

“I know the songs for performing sacrifice, too,” said Siddhartha, “though I no longer wish to sing them. I know magic spells, too, though I no longer wish to cast them. I have read the scriptures ...”

“Stop,” Kamala interrupted him. “You can read? And write?”

“Of course I can. There are many who can.”

“Most people cannot. Even I cannot. It is very good that you can read and write, very good. You will even be able to put the magic spells to good use.”

At that moment a servant girl came running and whispered something into her mistress’s ear.

“I have a visitor,” Kamala declared. You must go Siddhartha, quickly, you need to be aware that no-one should ever see you here! I will see you again tomorrow.”

But she ordered the maid to give the pious brahmin a white shirt. Before he knew what was happening to him the maid had led Siddhartha away through indirect paths to a summerhouse, given him the shirt, drawn him into the undergrowth and emphasised to him that he should leave the grove as quickly as possible and without being seen by anyone.

He was content to do as he had been told. He was used to the woods and made his way out of the grove and over the hedge without a sound. He was content to make his way back into the town, the shirt, rolled into a bundle, under his arm. He went to the door of a travellers’ hostel and asked silently for food, and silently accepted a piece of rice cake. This is probably the last day, he thought, when I will ever beg for food.

Pride suddenly flamed up in him. He was no longer a samana, it was no longer appropriate for him to beg. He gave the rice cake to a dog and, himself, went without food.

“Life here in the world is simple,” Siddhartha thought. “There are no difficulties. When I was still a samana everything was difficult, it took much effort and, in the end, it was without hope. Everything is easy now, the lesson in kissing that Kamala gave me was easy. I need clothes and money, that is all, and aims like that are petty and close at hand, no-one would lose any sleep about them.”

He had long since discovered where Kamala’s house in the city was, and the following day he arrived at its door.

“It is going well,” she called out to him. “You are expected by Kamaswami, and he is the richest businessman in the city. If he likes you he will take you into his service, so do be clever, won’t you, brown samana. I have had others tell him all about you. Be friendly to him, he is very powerful. But do not be too modest about yourself! I do not want you to be just one of his servants, you will have to be his equal, or else I will not be happy with you. Kamaswami is getting old, he is becoming complacent. If he likes you he will place a lot of trust in you.”

Siddhartha thanked her and laughed, and when he told her he had eaten nothing that day or the previous day she had bread and fruit brought for him to eat.

“You have been lucky,” she told him as he left, “one door after another is opening up for you. How could that be possible? Are you performing magic?”

Siddhartha said, “Yesterday I told you I know how to think, to wait, and to fast, but you thought that would be of no use. But it is very useful, Kamala, you will see. You will see that the stupid samanas in the wood learn to know and to do many nice things that you do not know how to do. Two days ago I was just a ragged beggar, one day ago I had already kissed Kamala, and soon I will be a businessman with money and with all the things that you think are important.”

“I expect you will,” she conceded. “But where would you be without me? What would become of you if Kamala did not help you?”

“Dear Kamala,” said Siddhartha, standing up straight, “when I came to you in your grove it was I who made the first step. I was resolved to learn the art of love from this most beautiful of women. From the very moment when I formed this resolution I also knew that I would succeed in it. I knew that you would help me, I knew it from the moment I first glimpsed you at the entrance to the grove.”

“What if I had not wanted to?”

“You did want to. Kamala, listen: if you throw a stone into water it drops quickly to the bottom by the fastest route it can. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the things of the world like a stone through water without doing anything, without making any effort; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His objective pulls him to itself, for he allows nothing into his soul that might work against his objective. That, Kamala, is what Siddhartha learnt among the samanas. That, Kamala, is what fools call magic in the supposition that it is performed by demons. Nothing is ever performed by demons, there are no demons. Anyone can perform magic, anyone can attain his objectives if he is capable of thought, if he is capable of waiting, if he is capable of fasting.”

Kamala listened to him. She loved his voice, she loved the look in his eyes.

“Maybe, my friend,” she said quietly, “you are right in what you say. Maybe it is also true that Siddhartha is an attractive man, that the look of him will appeal to women, maybe that is what brings him all his luck.”

With a kiss, Siddhartha took his leave. “I hope you are right, my teacher. I hope the look of me will always please you, I hope you will always bring me luck!”

AMONG THE CHILDLIKE PEOPLE

Siddhartha went to see Kamaswami the businessman, he was shown into a house of opulence, servants led him past costly carpets into a chamber where he waited for the master of the house.

Kamaswami entered, a fast-moving, nimble man with very grey hair, with very clever and cautious eyes and an acquisitive-looking mouth. Master and guest offered friendly greetings to each other.

“I am told,” the businessman began, “that you are a brahmin, a man of learning, but you seek a position in the service of a businessman. Have you fallen into need then, brahman, is that why you seek a position of service?”

“No,” said Siddhartha, “I have not fallen into need and I never have had difficulties. You should be aware that I come from the samanas, among whom I lived for a long time.”

“How can you not be in need if you have come from the samanas? Do samanas not live completely without possessions?”

“I am without possessions,” said Siddhartha, “if that is what you mean. Certainly, I am without possessions. But I am without possessions by my own free will, so I am not in need.”

“What do you think you will live on if you have no possessions?”

“I have never thought about that, sir. I have been without possessions for more than three years, and have never given a thought to what I should live on.”

“You have lived on the possessions of others then, have you?”

“That is what some would say. But a businessman, too, lives on the possessions of others.”

“Well said. But he does not take the possessions of others for nothing; he gives them his goods for them.”

“That does indeed seem to be their relationship. Each takes, each gives, that is life.”

“But, if I may ask: if you have no possessions what do you have to give?”

“Each gives what he has. The warrior gives strength, the businessman gives goods, the teacher gives teaching, the farmer gives rice, the fisherman gives fish.

“Very well. And what is it, then, that you have to give? What is it that you have learnt to do?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

“Is that all?”

“I think that is all!”

“And what is the good of that? Fasting, for instance, what is the good of that?”

“It is a lot of good, sir. If a man has nothing to eat then fasting is the cleverest thing of all that he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had never learnt to fast he would now have to perform some kind of service, be it for you or anyone else, for hunger would force him into it. But now Siddhartha can wait in peace, he knows no impatience, he knows no urgency, he can long withstand the siege of hunger and can laugh in its face. That, sir, is the good of fasting.”

“You are right, samana. Wait a moment.”

Kamaswami went out and came back with a roll of paper which he handed to his guest, asking, “Can you read this?”

Siddhartha looked at the roll on which a business contract was written and began to read out what it said.

“Excellent,” said Kamaswami. “And now will you write something on this sheet for me?”

He gave him pen and paper, and Siddhartha wrote and gave the sheet of paper back.

Kamaswami read, “Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.”

“You can write very well,” the businessman praised him. We will have a lot to talk about together. For today, though, I ask you to be my guest and to take up residence in this house.”

Siddhartha thanked him and accepted his offer, and now he lived in the merchant’s house. Clothes were brought to him, and shoes, and a servant prepared his bath for him every day. Twice a day a copious meal was brought in, but Siddhartha ate only once a day and he neither ate flesh nor drank wine. Kamaswami told him about his business, showed him his goods and his warehouses, let him see his accounts. Siddhartha learned many new things, he listened much and spoke little. He remembered the words of Kamala and was never the merchant’s subordinate, he forced him to see him as his equal, even to treat him as more than his equal. Kamaswami took great care over his business, often even showing passion for it, but Siddhartha saw it all as a game. He made the effort to learn the rules of the game, but the content of the game did not touch his heart.

Siddhartha had not been long in Kamaswami’s house before he took part in its owner’s business affairs. Every day, but at the time she stipulated, he would visit the beautiful Kamala, wearing fine clothes, fine shoes, and he soon began also to bring her presents. He learned a lot from her red and skillful mouth. He learned a lot from her gentle and supple hand. In matters of love Siddhartha was still a child, he was inclined to throw himself blindly and insatiably into his pleasures as if into a bottomless pit, but Kamala taught him from the very basics, she taught him that you cannot receive pleasure without giving pleasure, that every gesture, every stroke, every touch, every look, every tiny part of the body has its secret, and waking those secrets will bring happiness to whoever knows about them. She taught him that lovers should never separate immediately after the celebration of their love, not without each admiring the other, not without having conquered and having been conquered, so that neither will feel over-sated or abandoned or cross, or feel that one has misused the other or feel to have been misused. The hours he spent with this clever and beautiful artist were a time of wonder, he became her student, her lover, her friend. The value and meaning of his life now lay here with Kamala, not with the business affairs of Kamaswami.

The businessman delegated the writing of important letters and contracts to him, and formed the habit of seeking his advice on all important decisions. He saw quickly that Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, about shipping and commerce, but he saw that what he did brought good luck, he saw that Siddhartha knew far more than he about peace and equanimity, about the art of listening, and saw his acumen in understanding strangers. “This brahmin,” he said to a friend, “is not a proper businessman and he never will be, his soul never goes into affairs with any passion. But he has the secret of people to whom success comes of itself. Maybe it is because he was born under a good star, maybe it is magic, and maybe it is something he learned when he lived with the samanas. He only ever seems to be playing at business, business never seems to penetrate him, never to be his master, he never fears failure and he is never bothered by making a loss.”

The friend advised the businessman, “Give him a third of the profit of all the business he does for you, and let him bear the same proportion of the losses when they happen. That will make him more enthusiastic.”

Kamaswami followed this advice. But Siddhartha seemed little bothered by it. If he made a profit he accepted it with indifference; if he made a loss he would laugh and say, “Oh look, that did not go well!”

It did indeed seem that he was indifferent to affairs of business. One day he went out to a village to buy up a large harvest of rice, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another handler. Siddhartha nonetheless remained for several days in the village, making the farmers his guests, giving copper coins to their children, attended a wedding ceremony, and came back from his journey entirely happy and content. Kamaswami accused him of squandering time and money by not having come straight back. Siddhartha answered, “Do not tell me off, my friend! Nothing has ever been achieved by telling anyone off. If I have caused you to make a loss just let me bear it. I am very satisfied with this journey. I met many new people, a brahmin is now my friend, children played on my knees, farmers showed me their fields, no-one treated me there like a businessman.”

“That sounds all very nice,” exclaimed Kamaswami grudgingly, “but I should have thought that a businessman is what you actually are! Or did you go out there just for your own pleasure?”

“Certainly,” laughed Siddhartha, “certainly it was for my own pleasure that I went there. Why else would I have gone there? I have met new people, seen new places, enjoyed trust and friendliness, found friendship. Listen my friend, if I were Kamaswami I would have hurried back as soon as I saw that my attempt to purchase was in vain, I would have been full of annoyance, and in that case then time and money really would have gone to waste. As it is I have spent several days well, I have learned things, I have enjoyed the company of friends, I have done no harm to myself or anyone else either by getting cross or by being in too much of a hurry. And if I ever go there again, to buy a harvest in advance for instance or for any other reason, I will have a friendly welcome from cheerful people, and I will congratulate myself for not having been rushed or bad tempered this time. So leave things well enough alone, my friend, don’t harm yourself by telling me off! If the day ever comes when you see that Siddhartha has brought you any harm then just say the word and Siddhartha will go on his way. But till then let us just be content with each other as we are.”

The businessman tried to persuade Siddhartha by saying he was eating his, Kamaswami’s, bread, but this too was in vain. It was his own bread that he ate, or rather both of them ate the bread of others, the bread of everyone. Siddhartha never had an ear for Kamaswami’s worries, and Kamaswami made many worries for himself. If a deal was in process that might go badly, if goods dispatched seemed to have been lost, if a debtor seemed unable to pay, Kamaswami was never able to convince his co-worker that it would be of any use to speak words of anger or concern, to furrow one’s brow, to lose any sleep. One time when Kamaswami reproached Siddhartha the claim that everything he knew he had learned from him, Siddhartha replied, “Don’t be so ridiculous! What I have learnt from you is the price of a basket of fish and how much interest you can exact for money you lend. Those things are your kind of knowledge. You have never taught me to think, my dear Kamaswami, it might be better if you wanted to learn thinking from me.”

It was true that Siddhartha’s heart was not in business. Business was good for him to obtain money for Kamala, and he obtained much more than he needed. Moreover, Siddhartha was only concerned with people. Their business, craft, worries, pleasures and follies had earlier been as strange and distant as the moon, but now he took an interest in them. He had no difficulty in talking with everyone, to live with everyone, to learn from everyone, but the easier this was the more he became aware that there was something that separated him from them, and that was because he had been a samana. He saw how people lived their lives in a way that was like children or animals, something he both loved and despised. He saw their strivings, saw their sufferings and saw them turn grey about things that seemed to him not worth that price, about money, about petty pleasures, matters of petty honour, he saw them shouting and insulting each other, he saw them lamenting for pains which a samana would merely smile at, and for losses which a samana does not feel.

He was open to everything that these people brought him. The businessman was welcome who brought canvas for him to buy, the debtor was welcome who came asking for a loan, the beggar was welcome who spent an hour to tell him the story of his poverty but who was not half as poor as any samana. He behaved toward the rich foreign businessman in the same way as to the servant who shaved him or the street seller, and would allow him to cheat him of a few petty coins when he bought bananas. When Kamaswami came to him to lament his troubles or to accuse him of having handled a deal badly he listened to him with cheerful interest, wondered about him, tried to understand him, acknowledged that he was right on some small points when he had to, and then he would turn away to the next person who wanted his attention. And there were many who did want it, many who came to do business with him, many who came to cheat him, many who came to obtain information from him, many who wanted his pity, many who wanted his advice. He gave advice, he showed pity, he gave advice, he allowed himself to be cheated, slightly, and all this game, and all the passion with which all these people played it, occupied his thoughts just as much as, at one time, thoughts about the gods and about Brahman.

From time to time he would feel, deep in his breast, a faint and tender voice that gently admonished, gently complained, so gentle he was hardly aware of it. Then he would become aware for an hour of what an odd life he was leading, that he was doing all these things just as a game, that although he was cheerful and felt moments of pleasure his real life was flowing past without touching him. He played with his business affairs and the people he came into contact with in the same way as a sportsman plays with his ball, he watched them and found fun in so doing; in his heart, in the source of his being, he was not present. There was a place where that source flowed, but how far that place was from him, flowing and flowing out of sight, no longer had anything to do with his life. And there were times when he was alarmed at thoughts of this sort, and he wished he too could be granted a passion for all the childish to activity of the day, to take part in it with his heart, truly to live, truly to do, truly to enjoy life instead of just standing at one side of it as an onlooker. But he always went back to the beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love, practised the cult of lust by which, more than anywhere else, giving and taking become the same thing, he talked with her, learned from her, gave her his advice, accepted her advice. She understood him better than Govinda once had, she was more like him than Govinda had been.

One day he said to her, “You are like me, you are different from most people. You are Kamala, nothing else, and deep inside you there is peace and a refuge where you can go at any time and feel that that is your place, just as I can. Few people have that, though all people could have it.”

“Not all people are clever,” said Kamala.

“No,” said Siddhartha, “that is not what it is about. Kamaswami is just as clever as I am, but he has no place of refuge within himself. Others have one, people whose understanding is like that of a small child. Most people, Kamala, are like a leaf falling through the air and is blown from side to side, it twists, it staggers, till it hits the ground. There are others, though not many, who are like the stars, they follow a fixed course, no wind blows them, they have their laws and their path set within themselves. All the learned men and all the samanas - and I have known many of them - had one of this sort among them, a perfect one, and I can never forget him. He is Gotama, the noble one who disseminated that teaching. Thousands of young men listen to his teachings every day, they follow his precepts every hour of every day, but each one of them is a falling leaf, they do not have law and teachings within themselves.”

Kamala looked at him with a smile. “You are talking about him again,” she said, “you have your samana thoughts again.”

Siddhartha was silent, and they played the game of love, one of the thirty or forty different games that Kamala knew. Her body was as supple as a jaguar’s, and as the bow of a hunter; whoever learned the art of love from her came to know many joys, many secrets. She played long with Siddhartha, she drew him close, pushed him back, manipulated him, enveloped him: he enjoyed his mastery until he had been defeated and then, exhausted, he would rest at her side.

The courtesan leant over him, looked long into his face, into his now tired eyes.

“You are the best lover,” she said thoughtfully, “I have ever known. You are stronger than the others, more supple, more willing. You have learnt my art well, Siddhartha. One day, when I am older, I would like to have a child from you. But, my love, you have never stopped being a samana, and that means you do not love me, there is no-one whom you love. Am I right?”

“You might well be right,” said Siddhartha, tired. “I am like you. You do not love either - if you did, how could you carry on with love making as a craft? Perhaps people like you and me cannot love. The childlike people can; that is their secret.”

SANSARA

Siddhartha had spent a long time in the world of pleasure, though without being a part of it. In his years as a devoted samana he had put his senses to death but now they woke anew, he had tasted riches, tasted voluptuousness, tasted power; but in his heart he had remained a samana throughout this lengthy time, just as Kamala, clever Kamala, had seen. His life had been directed by the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting, and it continued to be so. The people of the world, the childlike people, continued to be strangers for him, just as he was a stranger for them.

The years went by and Siddhartha, wrapped in affluence, barely noticed how each of them passed away. He had become rich, he had long been the owner of his own house with servants and a garden by the river just outside the city. People liked him, they came to him when they needed money or advice, but, apart from Kamala, no-one was close to him.

That lofty, bright awareness that he had once experienced at the high point of his youth in the days after Gotama’s sermon, the time since the separation from Govinda, that taut expectation, that proud independence without teachings and without a teacher, that readiness to hear the voice of the divine from many sources, including his own heart, all this had slowly turned into mere memories, had become something ephemeral; the source of holiness that had once been near to had him become something distant, something whose murmurings had become quiet, though it had once murmured within him. It was true that much of what he had learned from the samanas, that he had learned from Gotama, that he had learned from his father the Brahmin, had remained within in him through this time: a modest life, the joy of thinking, hours in meditation, secret knowledge of his self, the eternal self which is neither body nor awareness. Much of it remained within him, but the rest had little by little sunk down and become covered in dust. Like the potter’s wheel that, once set turning, will continue long to turn, and only slowly will tire and lose its motion, the wheel of asceticism in Siddhartha’s soul, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of discernment, continued to turn and was still turning, but it turned slowly and hesitantly and was close to stopping. Slowly, like damp that soaks into the trunk of a dying tree, slowly filling it and making it decay, the world and apathy had insidiously soaked into Siddhartha’s soul, slowly filling it and making it heavy, making it tired. His senses, though, gained vigour, for they had learned much, experienced much.

Siddhartha had learned how to do business, how to exercise power over people, to have pleasure with women, he had learned to wear nice clothes, to give orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed water. He had learned to eat dainty and carefully prepared foods, even to eat fish and meat and fowl, spices and sweet things, to drink wine that makes you weary and forgetful. He had learned to play with dice and on the chess board, to observe dancers, to be carried on a litter and to sleep on a soft bed. But he had always felt he was different from others, superior to them, he always looked on them with a touch of laughter, with a touch of jeering contempt, with that very contempt that a samana always feels for people of the world. When Kamaswami was in a bad mood, when he became quarrelsome, when he felt he had been treated badly, when he felt over-burdened with the worries of business, Siddhartha had always found it laughable. But slowly and imperceptibly, as harvest times and rainy seasons came and went, his contemptuous laughter became more tired, his sense of superiority became subdued. Only slowly, there among his increasing wealth, Siddhartha had taken on something of the character of the childlike people, something of their naivety, something of their anxiety. And yet he envied them, and the more like them he became the more he envied them. He envied them for the one thing he did not have and they did have, he envied them for the importance they attributed to their lives, he envied the passion they felt in their joys and sorrows, envied the worried but sweet happiness they had in their never-ending loves. Their love for themselves, for women, for their children, for money or honours, for hopes and plans, these people were always in love with something. But it was not from them that he learned this, especially not their childlike joys and childlike follies; what he learned from them was the unpleasant things, the things he himself despised. More and more often, in the morning after spending the evening with friends he would lie long in bed feeling dull and tired. When Kamaswami bored him with his worries he would become irritable and impatient. When he lost a game playing at dice he would laugh much too loudly. His face was still cleverer and more spiritual than others’ but it seldom laughed, and one by one it took on the features so often seen in the face of rich people, features of discontent, of poor health, of surliness, of apathy, of indifference to others. Slowly, the sickness of the soul seen in rich people took hold of him.

Weariness sank over Siddhartha like a veil, like a light mist that with every day became a little heavier, every month a little thicker, every year a little heavier. As when a new garment becomes old with time, loses its bright colours with time, gathers stains, gathers creases, becomes worn at its hems and, here and there, begins to show places that are worn and threadbare, so Siddhartha’s new life that he had begun when he took his leave of Govinda had become old, with the quickly passing years it had lost its colour and its sheen, it had gathered stains and creases. This ugly sight was hidden at the base of it but here and there it could already be seen, disappointment and disgust lay in wait for him. Siddhartha did not notice. He noticed only that the bright and certain voice of his inside which once had woken within him and had led him through his years of splendour had now become silent.

The world had taken possession of him, fun, lust, apathy, and lastly that very vice that he had most despised and for which he had had the most contempt because of its folly, greed. Even property, the owning of riches, had finally taken hold of him, it was no longer a frivolous game, it had become his chains and his burden. It was an odd and insidious path that had led Siddhartha into this final and most contemptible of dependencies, playing dice. To be exact, as soon as, in his heart, he had ceased to be a samana, he had begun to gamble for money and dainty luxuries. He had previously despised these things, he had previously taken part in them with laughing indifference as one of the things done by the childlike people, but now he took part with growing aggressivity and passion. Other gamblers viewed him with fear, few would dare to play against him because the stakes he laid down were so high and audacious. Something in his heart compelled him to gamble, money was something miserable and when he lost, when he threw it away, it brought him a haughty pleasure, there was no more ostentatious way, no more contemptuous way that he could display his disdain for riches, the idol of businessmen. So he gambled high and without reserve, he hated himself for this, he despised himself for it, he threw it in by the thousand, threw it away by the thousand, he lost money, lost jewelry, lost a country house, then he won again, then he lost again. The anxiety, every terrible and oppressive anxiety he felt while throwing the dice for worryingly high stakes was something he loved, he always sought to renew it, always to raise it, always to tickle it a little higher, for it was in this feeling alone that he could feel something like happiness, something like inebriation, something like a higher kind of life in among the sated, lukewarm, insipid life he led.

Every time he lost a large amount he thought of gaining new riches, threw himself into business with new vigour and pressed his debtors harder to make them pay, for he wished to gamble again, he wanted to squander again, wanted, again, to display the contempt he had for riches. Siddhartha no longer had the indifference he had had when he lost, he no longer had the patience he had shown for bad debtors, no longer had the goodwill he had practised toward beggars, no longer had the joy he had felt when he made gifts or lent money to them who asked, knowing it would not be repaid. He would stake ten thousand on a throw of the dice and laugh when he lost it, but in his business affairs he became stricter and pettier, and at night he sometimes dreamt of money! Whenever he awoke from this vile enchantment, whenever he looked in the mirror on the bedroom wall and saw his face changed and uglier, whenever he felt beset by shame and disgust, then he would flee from it, he would flee into new games of chance, flee into the numbness of lust, the numbness of wine, and from there flee back into piling up more possessions. He ran around in this meaningless circle until he was tired, until he was old, until he was ill.

Until he was admonished in a dream. He had spent the evening hours with Kamala in her gorgeous pleasure garden. They had sat talking under the trees, and Kamala offered some well-considered words, words with sorrow and tiredness hidden behind them. She had asked him to tell her about Gotama and could not hear enough about him, the clarity of his eyes, the quiet beauty of his mouth, the benevolence of his smile, the peace of his walk. He had to tell her about the noble buddha for great lengths of time, and Kamala would sigh and say, “One day, perhaps one day soon, I will go and follow this buddha too. I will give my pleasure garden to him and take refuge in his teachings.” But then she would tease him, she would lead him into playful lovemaking, she would chain him to her with a passion that was painful, with biting, with tears, as if she wanted, just once more, to press the last drops of sweetness out of this life of vain and short-lived fun. Never had it been so exceptionally clear to Siddhartha how close lust is to death. Then he would lie at her side and Kamala’s face would come close to his, and, clearer than ever before, he would read a message of anxiety under her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, a script of fine lines, of slight wrinkles, a script reminiscent of Autumn and of growing old just as Siddhartha was himself growing old, for he was now in his forties and had noticed grey hairs here and there among the black ones. Tiredness could be read on Kamala’s beautiful face, tiredness from traveling a long road that has no happy ending, tiredness and the start of her decline, and hidden there, not yet spoken of, was an anxiety that she was not yet aware of: fear of old age, fear of the Autumn, fear of the certainty of death. He had taken his leave of her with a sigh, his soul full of lethargy, full of concealed anxiety.

One time, when Siddhartha had spent an evening at home with wine and dancing girls, when he had played the superior with his peers, though he no longer was their superior, when he had drunk a great deal of wine and, tired but excited, he had not gone to seek his rest until long after midnight, he found himself in a state of despair and was close to tears. He waited long in the vain pursuit of sleep, his heart full of a sorrow that he thought he could no longer bear, full of disgust that seemed to permeate every part of him like the vile taste of lukewarm wine, like the over-sweet and vapid music, like the over-soft smiles on the dancers’ faces, like the over-sweet scent on their hair and their breasts. But what disgusted him more than anything else was himself, his perfumed hair, the smell of wine in his mouth, the tired slackness and the dullness of his skin. Just as one who has eaten or drunk too much will endure his vomiting and even feel glad at the relief it brings, so Siddhartha, unable to sleep, felt a gush of monstrous disgust and wished to be relieved of these pleasures, these habits, this entire life of meaninglessness. It was only when the first light of morning came, and the activities in the street in front of his house began to wake, that he drowsed, for a few moments felt some slight assuagement of his anguish, found something resembling sleep. And that was when he began to dream:

Kamala had a small and rare songbird that she kept in a golden cage. It was of this songbird that he dreamed. He dreamt: the bird had become silent, though it had formerly always sung in the morning time, and when he noticed this he went to the cage and looked in. There he saw the little bird lying dead and stiff on the floor. He took it out, held it for a while in his hand and then threw it away, out into the street. At that moment he felt horror at what he had done and felt such pain in his heart as if he had thrown out everything of any value, everything of any good about himself when he threw this bird out.

Waking from this dream he felt himself possessed by a deep sorrow. Worthless, it seemed to him, worthless and meaningless was the life he had been leading; nothing living, nothing that was in anyway beautiful or worth keeping had remained with him. He stood there alone and empty, like a castaway on the shore.