Siddhartha Journey

After leaving Gautama, Siddhartha decides to experience the world of ordinary living. Siddhartha sees a beautiful young courtesan, Kamala, and begs her to teach him the art of love. She tells Siddhartha that he

When Siddhartha leaves and joins the Samanas we begin to understand the origin of where his suffering is coming from; which is all seen as the second noble truth. In his search for enlightenment Siddhartha hoped that by joining the samanas that he would be liberated from

Siddhartha meets this beautiful woman named Kamala. He is intrigued by her and wants to get to know her. Kamaswami is also an involved character in the book that contributed with the way Siddhartha gains so much of his wealth. Siddhartha learns from the two of them to make money, and all is well for a little while, but

Siddhartha is saying. that the practices of the samana are just a way of leaving life and its problems temporarily by making their bodies undergo these hardships. They eventually become numb with the pain and by doing so, the samana are able to leave their worries of the real world temporarily.

Siddhartha begins to deviate from his holy walk in life when he meets Kamala. In Siddhartha Kamala is a pleasure woman who owns a beautiful grove outside of a larger town. “Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was

This change in character, though it is more dominant towards the end of the novel, is also seen in the second part of Siddhartha’s journey when he meets Kamala for the first time. It is very surprising when Siddhartha asks Kamala to be his teacher, especially after he relays to Govinda that he was not satisfied with the teachings of the Samanas. But even so, Siddhartha follows through and is a good student, “He visited the beautiful Kamala regularly, learned the art of love in which, more than anything else, giving and taking become one. He talked to her, learned from her, gave her advice, received advice. She understood him better than Govinda had once done. She was more like him” (Hesse 58). This shows that Siddhartha has made a much deeper connection with Kamala than he has anyone before. These connections then show us that Siddhartha has learned about attachment, something that he did not have as a Samana.

Kamala soon becomes Siddhartha’s lover, and she helps him learn the ways of the city, leaving his ascetic life as a Samana behind. She then has a child that is from Siddhartha, whom Siddhartha had never met. Kamala does not have a very spiritual life, and Siddhartha influences her to seek a more spiritual lifestyle to better herself. She becomes tired of being a courtesan and realizes she can be a better person. The author brings Kamala back into the story when the news of Gotama’s advancement towards death breaks out into the villages; “One day, when very many people were making a pilgrimage to the dying Buddha, Kamala, once the most beautiful of the courtesans, was also on her way. She had long retired from her previous way of life, had presented her garden to Gotama’s monks, taking refuge in his teachings. . .” (Hesse 90). Kamala is one of the most important characters in the book because she is able to teach Siddhartha about physical love, and lead him to spiritual enlightenment.

        The stage of transcendence was when the inner voice that has guided Siddhartha thus far surges out and becomes boldly manifest in this river, which, far more than simply water, is the voice of life itself.  In the river, Siddhartha sees images come together, just as he hears voices come together.  Here, "He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there, it was always the same and yet every moment it was new."  The river can be everywhere at the same time.  Only the present means anything to the river, not the past or the

Comparing the River and the Village of Desires is like comparing peanut butter and jelly, separately they have no relations but when you combine them they create something magnificent and something many can relate to. The village, for example, represents a distraction for Siddhartha. This distraction prevents Siddhartha from focusing on his enlightenment journey but also he eventually comes to a realization which helps guide him on the right path again, "He had finished with that. That also died in him. He rose, said farewell to the mango tree and the pleasure garden. As he had not had any food that day he felt extremely hungry, and thought of his house in town, of his room and bed, of the table with food. He smiled wearily, shook his head and said goodbye to these things" (68). Siddhartha finally leaves the city, leaving lonely and empty with no wealth, nor lover or any belongings where he realizes he hates the

His new teachers, Kamala and Kamaswami taught him the material arts of love, and business respectively. Finally, Siddhartha decided to leave this life behind, and return to the river where he first met the ferryman, Vasudeva. Still going against his original plan,

   In Siddhartha's quest for enlightenment, Herman Hesse makes the river the final focal point of the novel. Siddhartha is set on his journey to the river by listening to his inner voice and questioning authority. The river comes to represent the ideas through which Siddhartha reaches enlightenment. The essential concepts of time and how it relates to life are discovered by Siddhartha through listening to the river. He comes to realize that his previous conclusion is correct, wisdom cannot be taught. When he reaches nirvana, he also sees how spiritualism and materialism both have a place in the cycle of life. Acting as Siddhartha's inspiration to his ultimate goal, the river

Born as the Brahmins Son, Siddhartha was surrounded by the luxuries and privileges of someone that has a supreme role in the caste system. The concept of Siddhartha's life is represented by the river comes into motion as we see the river being implemented in the early stages of the book as Herman Hesse describes Siddhartha’s childhood. Different actions, his childhood revolved around the river that Siddhartha grew up in but most importantly he performs his rituals and his holy offerings. “ Suntanned

Kamala, is the main, and indeed, the only female main character in the novel Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. Kamala, a wealthy courtesan, is the bridge between the lay people reading the novel and the main character Siddhartha, who is more of a holy man, than a relatable character. Kamala is a kind, yet selfish women who allows for the reader to connect to Siddhartha, by making him more imperfect. Later in the novel, even after Siddhartha has left town, she unintentionally brings Siddhartha, his son, and again provokes him to react as an imperfect human rather than a holy man. Thus, Kamala, while not necessarily a large character, she is integral to the plot and to the reader's ability to connect to the novel.

     Siddhartha, set in India, is subtitled an "Indic Poetic Work," and it clearly owes much to Indian religions. But the question of the exact nature of Hesse's debt to various aspects of Indian religion and philosophy in Siddhartha is quite complicated and deserves detailed discussion. This essay will discuss the elements of Hindu and Buddhist thought present in Siddhartha and make distinctions between them.

Vasudeva teaches Siddhartha how to learn the many secrets the river has to tell. In contemplating the river, Siddhartha has a revelation, just as the water of the river flows into the ocean and is returned by rain, all forms of life are interconnected in a cycle without beginning or end. One day he found the letter Om appearing in the river which he