Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: A Western Understanding of Buddhism

Hesse’s Siddhartha is considered a fascinating and compelling work of German literature, but its subject matter, the poetic narrative of Buddhism, transcends it to the category of Weltliteratur or World Literature and lends it the reputation of an authoritative text for Western understanding of Buddhism. As evident from the title of the work Siddhartha: Eine indische Dichtung (Siddhartha: An Indian poetic work), it provides an exegesis on Indian Buddhist thought. In Siddhartha and in his diary notes, in which he penned down his feelings about Buddhism, Hesse does not speak of a religious Buddhism. One finds here an outright rejection of religious teachings and established religious institutions. Hesse is against any dogmatic view of a spiritual path. One can liberate oneself and discover the Atman only by liberating oneself from institutional bondage. His understanding of Buddhism is about exploring the Self. But is this idea not in contradiction with traditional Buddhism, which denies the existence of the Self, the Atman, while Hesse’s Siddhartha lays a greater emphasis on the discovery of the Self, defining it as the purpose of one’s life. Hesse portrays the image of a spiritual seeker, but how far is this image in congruence with traditional Buddhism? This paper makes an attempt to address such key issues. The purpose is to identify various themes that are addressed in Siddhartha and to critically examine them in view of the understanding of traditional Buddhism. This study is necessitated by the seminal importance of the work, which forms the cornerstone of the discourse on Buddhism in the West. This paper will present qualitative research and adopt thematic and content analysis techniques.