Siddhartha Full Text

[Lina Drury]

Inteaching the perspectives of the Asian religious traditions, I am involved daily in the process of observing, interpreting, and explaining the thinking of one culture to people whose minds have been molded by the world view of quite a different culture. In structuring this process, one of the most important tasks is choosing texts that work to form bridges between a primarily (broadly speaking) American way of seeing, and either an Indian, Japanese, or Chinese perspective. To this end, I am always looking for writing that will create links sufficiently clear to allow American readers to grasp new paradigms while scrupulously maintaining the integrity of the Asian conceptions.

Although the popularity of these works as transmitters of Asian thought among a general reading public is disturbing, my primary concern is rather their use in college or high-school introductory Asian religion or world religion classes because they contain enough of the terminology and images of the Asian tradition to be compelling, but they lack a solid grounding in the tradition as a whole.

We come to the South and East full of longing, driven by a dark and grateful premonition of home, and we find here a paradise, the abundance and rich voluptuousness of all natural gifts. We find the pure, simple, childlike people of paradise. But we ourselves are different; we are alien here and without any rights of citizenship; we lost our paradise long ago, and the new one that we wish to build is not to be found along the equator and on the warm seas of the East. It lies within us and in our own northern future.2

Through Siddhartha, Hesse expresses this skeptical view that Buddhism destroys old beliefs without offering substantive replacements; that Buddhism fails to provide effective guidance in the search for inner peace and meaning. In the novel, Siddhartha speaks these words to the Buddha himself:

Again, I do not want to say that all studies emanating from outside particular traditions must be viewed skeptically until given the imprimatur of an elite group of scholars within that religious tradition. But I do think that all authors exploring cultural and religious traditions outside their own must first be aware of, and second, be sensitive to how the tradition explains itself to its own practitioners as well as to others. If a practicing Buddhist were to read Siddhartha, he or she would most certainly wonder what had happened to the foundation of all Buddhist insight, the deep reverence for the three refuges and the essential practice of meditation.

But according to your very own teachings, this unity and necessary sequence of all things is nevertheless broken in one place, through a small gap, this world of unity is invaded by something alien, something new, something which had not been there before, and which cannot be demonstrated and cannot be proven: these are your teachings of overcoming the world, of salvation. But with this small gap, with this small breach, the entire eternal and uniform law of the world is breaking apart again and becomes void.

It is what Siddhartha said to Gotama as he found it an objection but I am unable to think with the depth to grab the gist of his objection. If anyone who have read this and can explain please help me.

As Sidhdhartha started admiring Gotama's thought of seeing world as unity and understanding that superior being regardless of gods or any other chance. But in the same concept he told there is something alien and new. I do understand he left teachings because salvation is something that can not be achieved by them but self exploration. Still he talked something different there (see bold above) that is puzzling me.

In the quoted paragraph he doesn't say what the hole actually is. I'd expect to find out in the text that follows - this para seems like it's an introduction to the hole. It's a very roundabout way of saying "I'm terribly sorry, but you're wrong".

Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha, l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE) was, according to legend, a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal and, in preaching his path to others, founded Buddhism in India in the 6th-5th centuries BCE.

The events of his life are largely legendary, but he is considered an actual historical figure and a younger contemporary of Mahavira (also known as Vardhamana, l. c. 599-527 BCE) who established the tenets of Jainism shortly before Siddhartha's time.

According to Buddhist texts, a prophecy was given at Siddhartha's birth that he would become either a powerful king or great spiritual leader. His father, fearing he would become the latter if he were exposed to the suffering of the world, protected him from seeing or experiencing anything unpleasant or upsetting for the first 29 years of his life. One day (or over the course of a few) he slipped through his father's defenses and saw what Buddhists refer to as the Four Signs:

On a theological level, people began to question the entire construct of Hinduism. Hinduism taught that there was a supreme being, Brahman, who had not only created the universe but was the universe itself. Brahman had established the divine order, maintained this order, and had delivered the Vedas to enable human beings to participate in this order with understanding and clarity.

It was understood that the human soul was immortal and that the goal of life was to perform one's karma (action) in accordance with one's dharma (duty) in order to break free from the cycle of rebirth and death (samsara) and attain union with the oversoul (atman). It was also understood that the soul would be incarnated in physical bodies multiple times, over and over, until one finally attained this liberation.

The Hindu priests of the time defended the faith, which included the caste system, as part of the divine order but, as new ideas began to circulate, more people questioned whether that order was divine at all when all it seemed to offer was endless rounds of suffering. Scholar John M. Koller comments:

From a religious perspective, new ways of faith and practice challenged the established Vedic religion. The main concern dominating religious thought and practice at the time of the Buddha was the problem of suffering and death. Fear of death was an especially acute problem, because death was seen as an unending series of deaths and rebirths. Although the Buddha's solution to the problem was unique, most religious seekers at this time were engaged in the search for a way to obtain freedom from suffering and repeated death. (46)

Siddhartha Gautama grew up in this time of transition and reform but, according to the famous Buddhist legend concerning his youth, would not have been aware of any of it. When he was born, it was prophesied that he would become a great king or spiritual leader and his father, hoping for the former, hid his son away from anything that might be distressing. Siddhartha's mother died within a week of his birth, but he had no awareness of this, and his father did not want him to experience anything else as he grew which might inspire him to adopt a spiritual path.

Siddhartha knew that his father would never allow him to follow this path and, further, he had a wife and son he was responsible for who would also try to prevent him. At the same time, though, the thought of accepting a life he knew he would ultimately lose and suffer for was unbearable. One night, after looking at all of the precious objects he was attached to and his sleeping wife and son, he walked out of the palace, left his fine clothes, put on the robes of an ascetic, and departed for the woods. In some versions of the story, he is assisted by supernatural means while, in others, he simply leaves.

Criticism of this story often includes the objection that Siddhartha could not possibly have gone 29 years without ever becoming sick, seeing an older person, or being aware of death, but this is explained by scholars in two ways:

Most likely the truth of the legend of the four signs is symbolic rather than literal. In the first place, they may symbolize existential crises in Siddhartha's life occasioned by experiences with sickness, old age, death, and renunciation. More important, these four signs symbolize his coming to a deep and profound understanding of the true reality of sickness, old age, death, and contentment and his conviction that peace and contentment are possible despite the fact that everyone experiences old age, sickness, and death. (49)

The story may or may not be true, but it hardly matters because it has come to be accepted as truth. It appears first in full in the Lalitavistara Sutra (c. 3rd century CE) and, before that, may have undergone extensive revision via oral tradition. The symbolic meaning seems obvious and the claim it was written to enhance the standing of Buddhist thought, which had to contend with the established faiths of Hinduism and Jainism for adherents, also seems probable.

In one version of his story, at this point he stumbles into a river, barely strong enough to keep his head above water, and receives direction from a voice on the wind. In the more popular version, he is found in the woods by a milkmaid named Sujata, who mistakes him for a tree spirit because he is so emaciated, and offers him some rice milk. The milk revives him, and he ends his asceticism and goes to nearby village of Bodh Gaya where he seats himself on a bed of grass beneath a Bodhi tree and vows to remain there until he understands the means of living without suffering.

Deep in a meditative state, Siddhartha contemplated his life and experiences. He thought about the nature of suffering and fully recognized its power came from attachment. Finally, in a moment of illumination, he understood that suffering was caused by the human insistence on permanent states of being in a world of impermanence. Everything one was, everything one thought one owned, everything one wanted to gain, was in a constant state of flux. One suffered because one was ignorant of the fact that life itself was change and one could cease suffering by recognizing that, since this was so, attachment to anything in the belief it would last was a serious error which only trapped one in an endless cycle of craving, striving, rebirth, and death. His illumination was complete, and Siddhartha Gautama was now the Buddha, the enlightened one.

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