This document provides context for an apology being written for Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha. It discusses how Hesse was exposed to Eastern philosophy from a young age through his missionary parents. While Siddhartha drew on some Eastern concepts like rebirth and the possibility of liberation, it is argued that Hesse used these motifs more as a vehicle to explore his own spiritual struggles rather than accurately representing Indian philosophy. The apology aims to acknowledge that while Siddhartha inspired many to learn about Eastern traditions, Hesse's depictions were a romanticized cultural appropriation rather than a precise representation of South Asian religious concepts.

1. Running Title: An Apology
An Apology for Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha
By Rickey Lee Bauman
May 1st
, 2016
California Institute of Integral Studies
Carol Whitfield

2. An Apology 2
The decision to deploy an apologia must be done in earnest. When Theodor Adorno
defended Richard Wagner in his collection of essays about the composer it was obvious that he
was doing so to save the art from the reputation of the artist. Wagner, after all, had been linked
with the “conservative revolution” of the 1930s—and antisemitism. By the1950s, Adorno's
German colleagues were in good stead to root out as many national socialists as possible from
the catalog. And though there were many who would not deserve an apology, he presumed that
certain geniuses would find themselves as babies thrown out with the bathwater.
Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha has few enemies and it could be asked, why does it
require an apology in the first place? His words were inspired. His concerns for human suffering
were pure. He is not guilty for showing a lyrical interest in the color of life. Nor must one
apologize for his painting with sincere brush strokes the life of Siddhartha, whose name means
“to achieve what is searched for.” He is not guilty in the strict sense. The apologia reveals a deep
concern for ancestors in history and for keeping in check the discriminating powers of
modernism. As the global narrative continues to expand novels like Siddhartha published in 1922
may see a day when they are criticized for their style but their idealization and a misquotation of
south Asian religious motifs.
This apologia must be rooted in the understanding that his literary devise, “Indischen
Dichtung” (Indian Poetry) was a cultural appropriation. Taken at face value, his “Indian” style is
is simple and romantic, but not particularly “Indian” in poetic or philosophical value. When laid
out, side by side, Hesse's various use of Vedic symbols and Buddhist philosophy do not actually

3. An Apology 3
match their representative and well-known meaning in the East. Siddhartha has been acclaimed
for drawing young minds eastward but Hesse, in actuality, used this story as a vehicle to explore
his own disillusionment with western life. His personal struggles and his fruitless passions, all of
these came to life in a fairytale form of India, where there was once an ‘ideal life to live
somewhere faraway,’ and where one could speak to Gautama Buddha and sing to Indra and
Brahman.
Part One: The Spiritual Seeker from Calw
Born in Calw, Germany in 1877 to missionary parents Hesse had both a strict and erudite
upbringing. According to his own biographical writings, in his childhood house “hier wurde
gebetet und in der Bibel gelesen, hier wurde studiert und indische Philologie getrieben […] hier
wusste man von Buddha und Lao Tse.” (Here one prayed and read the Bible. Here one studied
and had the Indian philology forced on them. Here one knew of Buddha and Lao Tzu) (Reclam:
28). His early introduction to the East was unique and as Eastern philosophy grew in popularity
around the turn of the century in Europe it probably offered him an advantage. But early on in
his educational years, we can see that his exposure to Christian dogma and industrial,
materialistic society chaffed him spiritually and almost drove him at times to suicide. To save
himself from neurotic oblivion he seems to have developed a romantic attitude as many pre-war
artists did and followed suit as a poet and novelist.
Early short stories like Der Dichter (1913) begin to reveal that long before writing
Siddhartha he was already using eastern motifs to explore his ideas. The mystical East was, in a

4. An Apology 4
sense, what “Byzantium” was for W.B. Yeats or “Faust: Part Two” for Goethe; it was a spiritual
get-away, a place to go for refuge in the mind. The act of writing toward India, in short, was a
spiritual practice. It was his Morganlandfahrt (Journey to the East). By using the Indian myths
Hesse was able to synthesize his spiritual longings with is spiritual dilemmas. And while he did
so, some of the basic features of the Eastern containing myth would have been applicable.
Concepts such as ignorance (Avidyā), ceaseless rebirth (saṃsāra), and a belief in the
possibility of liberation became increasingly important to Hesse. After his visit to India in 1911,
he writes, “das starke Gefühl von der Einheit und nahen Verwandtschaft alles Menschenwesens,
das ich unter Indiern, […] gewonnen haben” (I have gained among the Indians […] a strong
sense of unity and close kinship among all humankind) (Reclam: 102). He seems to have gained
through his experiences a working knowledge of the basic principles. He would have grasped
that, “ignorance of reality is the cause of our bondage and sufferings, and liberation from these
cannot be achieved without knowledge of reality” (Chatterjee: 18). This knowledge can be
found in his troubled character in Klingsor’s Last Summer (1919). In this story, Klingsor
struggles with the need and desire for sensual experience and the gloom that follows it.
Secondly and dominate in the atmosphere of Siddhartha, Hesse explores the possibility of
liberation through knowledge. Siddhartha is like an empty vessel; the first half of the story he
attempts to fill himself with knowledge, taking teachers and practicing a strict form of
asceticism. Clearly, Hesse himself took this to heart and made a life-long study of eastern and
western classics and removed himself progressively from the vanity of society choosing rather to
live in the alps, where his chief hobby would become gardening and water-coloring landscapes.
Again the confines of the Western cosmology halted Hesse’s imagination. Moving away

5. An Apology 5
from a scientific formula or the Christian creation myth of a crass God shaping the world some
6,000 years ago, Hesse shows a preference to “the vastness of space-time world, which formed
the common back ground of Indian thought and influences its moral and metaphysical outlook”
(Chatterjee: 22). One must only consider the forward vision of Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass
Bead Game, 1943) with its narrator speaking from a distant time and place and providing a
biography for the main character, Knecht. Knecht meanwhile has a practice of exploring ‘past
lives’ as rainmaker in primitive, per-historic times. The result is a book that seems to reach so far
into the future and past that the story itself feels eternal or limitless. Interestingly, this same
book includes a short story about a young Indian man who “dreams up” an entire life-time,
showing Hesse’s ability to play with concepts of māyā and the desire for siddhis. All of these
features, I’d argue, come from Hesse’s life-long passion for the East and his practice of
morganlandfahren.
But to return to Siddhartha, the most common element of the eastern paradigm which the
tale truly revolves around form start to finish is the quest for liberation (mukti). That real
happiness and perfection could be realized here on earth, in this lifetime (Chaterjee: 18) was
precisely the taboo of Christianity that so bothered Hesse and other spiritual seekers. One Man
“got it” and He came and died on a cross. The best one could do was imitate this Christ or merely
wait for the afterlife. What was Hesse to do with that, what was anyone to do with that? Both
these options are obviously flawed in that they deny the innate nature of an individual, the very
thing that Christ pointed to when he asked “follow me.” That a person could achieve liberation
as an expression of the One, a representation of the One, as the Self, were concepts barred to
common Christianity. Now some thinkers had an inkling of this dilemma and they were the

6. An Apology 6
literaries that influenced Hesse himself: the romantics. As a late-romantic, Hesse would have
been well aware that romantic writers typically ended in early death or sad and bitter
disillusionment. He would have looked therefore at other traditions which promised a more
lasting effect. The romantics could only produce momentary jaunts of enlightenment and bliss
and were capable of producing bliss as an ordinary and worldly experience of everyday. In short,
they could not sustain, hence their emotional crashes and worldly short comings. Thus Hesse's
characters tend to strive for some lasting realization, for the life that would fully express their
longings and nature. Siddhartha was no different; and Hesse would have taken the hints of
Buddhism and Vedanta to explore this 'lasting bliss.'
It was clear in the sadistic and self-destructive events of the early 20th
century that the
Western containing myth was in turmoil, split open, and even shattered. It certainly offered no
practical conclusions for these sufferings. Meanwhile, the East had a different outlook:
Chatterjee expresses, “practical motive prevails in Indian Philosophy [it’s] moved to speculation
by spiritual disquiet at the sight of the evils that cast a gloom over life in this world and it wants
to understand the source of these evils and incidentally the nature of the universe and the
meaning of human life” (Chatterjee: 13). Its true the cowardice of humanity could be explained
as the workings of a devil or the lovelessness of brothers and sisters in forbidden forms of
sexuality. But for Hesse like so many intellectuals these secular and non-secular platitudes were
unconvincing. The Indian philosophical attitude would have been a breath of fresh air and
provided leverage for him to explore his sufferings.

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Part 2: The God that Wore a Mask
Now while Hesse grasped the basic concepts of the Eastern Containing myth, he had
done so as many westerners. He had picked out what worked for him and left the esoteric and
mysterious on the wayside and reinterpreted the symbolic. Vedanta finds its roots in a tradition
that is older than the written word. And "the vedic rishis were mystics who reserved their inner
knowledge for the initiates; they shielded them from the vulgar by the use of an alphabet of
symbols which could not readily be understood without initiation” (Key to : 1). Hesse's symbolic
understanding of the Vedas was introductory and second-hand. Philosophical meanings which
are to be absorbed through tradition and particularly the tradition known as Advaita Vedanta
were somewhat faraway. Hesse, for instance, never took a teacher (guru) himself. Instead he
gleamed his understandings from books.
It is not entirely suprising that his treatment of Vedantic tradition, therefore, at the
opening of the book falls short and fails to providing vedic symbolism in its proper context.
Hesse recasts the symbolic language of the Vedas—the ātman, brahman, the ritual sacrifice, and
the vedic hymns—and uses them to express his own doubts with Christianity. Consider the
deeply Christian tone of the following passage:
“And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his
eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in
its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where
was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and
bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught.
So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman,
there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and

8. An Apology 8
nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the
teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs!“ (Siddhartha Hesse:
13)
Atman does not reside anywhere. The non-dual existence, the “sole reality,” the undivided One
has no dwelling place that is not every dwelling place, and certainly no “innermost part.” For
Vedanta Pure being is all-transcendent, “part-less, action-less, tranquil, flawless, stainless. [And]
being of the nature of Pure Consciousness, Brahman, the Supreme Being is All-Awareness, Self-
manifest” (Satprakashananda: 41). Clearly the question, “where” would have been a rather
shallow inquiry for the up-starting Siddhartha were his character true to context.
Hesse makes the mistake of subjugating Brahman to the western concept of God.
Actually, this remains a continuous error of many eastern studies. Perhaps the problem lay in the
lack of a good working definition of the word “God” and an over-eagerness of commentators to
resonate with western readers. Either way, the concepts of Brahman and an over-seeing
anthropomorphic God are rather far apart. But for Hesse it allowed for him to fix the doubt of
God's existence or importance or relevancy onto Brahman, thereby giving his character
Siddhartha a reason to seek and reason to question authority. Hesse's indignation becomes very
clear at the end the first part of the book, when Siddhartha has his 'awakening' and “[existence]
was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the
deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity” (Hesse:43). Such emotional
attributes are a clear indicator that Hesse really speaks of Jehovah not Brahman.
Siddhartha's concerns with the propriety of his culture and the validity of Brahman really
just echo the European psycho-drama of the father-son conflict and the gross abuses of the
church in maintaining temporal control. For dramatic consistency, the father of Siddhartha must

9. An Apology 9
portray some authority on the subject matter of the Vedas. The Vedas likewise and the rituals
must chaff young Siddhartha, just as the Bible and the Church chaffed Hesse. Like an iron-
buckle, brimstone preacher, Siddhartha's father has to carry the Vedas and its rituals in a rigorous
and tiresome way. Siddhartha must question the sacrifice. The need to leave an authoritative and
traditional father works hand-in-hand with leaving a by-gone structure. Thereby the spiritual
texts and rituals are shown to be dogmatic—like Christian textual interpretations—in actuality
hymns of the Vedic texts and their Vedantic translations have been ignored. Sri Aurobindo
describes the significance of the Rg-Veda quiet beautifully,
“In its esoteric, as well as its exoteric significance, it is the Book of Works, of the
inner and the outer sacrifice; it is the spirit's hymn of battle and victory as it
discovers and climbs to planes of thought and experience inaccessible to the
natural or animal man [...]It is far, therefore, from being an attempt to set down
the results of intellectual or imaginative speculation, nor does it consist of the
dogmas of a primitive religion” (Aurobindo: 10).
In short, the Vedas are not written like the Bible, in particular the Rg-Veda. The scholar and
teacher Gosvāmī writes on the transmission of the Vedic symbol, “a good Vedic instructor who
has learned the Vedas is like a competent captain, and the vedic hymns are like favorable
breezes.” There is no mention of 'interpretation' or 'correct meaning,' instead the sounded verse
itself must move the learning. This is in sharp contrast to the pseudo-historical and literal
method of Bible study. And it is at this form of Bible study that Siddhartha shakes his fist.

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Part 3: How not to be a Buddhist.
Contrary to the name of the story there is little Buddhism in the novel. Hesse dedicates
one paragraph to the teachings of Gautama, “With a soft, yet firm voice the exalted one spoke,
taught the four main doctrines, taught the eightfold path, patiently he went the usual path of the
teachings, of the examples, of the repetitions” (Hesse: 34). Subsequently after having received
these basic teachings, Siddhartha refutes Gautama's path toward salvation explaining, “This is
why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none,
but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die”
(Hesse: 39). In a sense, Hesse sets up Buddhism just to knock it down. And yet was this
necessary? Or does it once again show Hesse's own fight with his upbringing and culture? It
appears that “the Buddha emphasized self-reliance and the experiential testing-out of all
teaching, including his own” (Harvey: 30). Siddhartha doesn't actually need to refute the
teachings; the teachings themselves promote his ideals! And yet Hesse is determined to have
Siddhartha go alone and to learn from himself. He thus shows himself a devotee of avidyā and
māyā.
Hesse's preoccupation with images of singular heroic figures so common in European
tradition unfortunately results in a hasty treatment of Buddhism. It is true, as Siddhartha
becomes more attached to the world he employs the concept of saṃsāra to express a mid-life
crisis. But again the connotations are mixed up. When taken in the Buddhist sense, Siddhartha's
psychological breakdown and severe depression are actually the result of avidyā. A quote by

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D.T. Suzuki will make this clear:
One thing, however, is certain, which is this: Ignorance (avidyā) is the
principium individiuum, that creates the multitudinousness of phenomena in the
absolute oneness of being, that tosses up the roaring billows of existence […]
and leads many confused minds to egoism with all its pernicious corollaries.
(Suzuki: 116).
Meaning that in Siddhartha's case, his own attempts of isolated (egoic) learning have led to his
very crisis and confusion. Hesse makes no attempt to understand the source of this suffering. To
pin it on the succession of souls, saṃsāra, is a weak corollary. Had he actually attempted to find
the cause of Siddhartha's suffering and explored in his novel he would have had to employ the
very teachings that Siddhartha had refused, namely the four noble truths.
1. The truth of suffering (dukkha)
2. The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
3. The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
4. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)
Having just mediated on these four truths, Siddhartha would have realized that his self-isolation
and his quest for enlightenment were the cause of his suffering. Also that his stubborn attitude
toward authority and lack of self-discipline have led to his indulgences. Siddhartha could have
developed a spiritual practice within the context of his life with his lover Kamala and while
maintaining profession life rather than abandoning them altogether. But it appears that for Hesse
the only valuable release from suffering is the “end-all” nirvana.
Nirvana is not the means to end suffering, rather it occurs as one liberates themselves
from saṃsāra. And this is another misconception of Hesse's. “To long for Nirvana and to shun
worldliness are of dualism” sats suzuki (107). Siddhartha has become attached to an ugly and
pointless world. The answer to this dilemma for Hesse is to leave it; a conclusion which

12. An Apology 12
resembles more of his German romanticism than a Buddhist attitude and temperament.
Hesse tactfully does not give his Siddhartha an awakening. To the very end, Siddhartha is
seeking and not finding. But what Siddhartha is seeking is not quiet the nirvana meant by
Buddhists. Suzuki attributes two aspects to nirvana: one “negatively, the destruction of evil
passions, and, positively, the practice of sympathy; […] and when we have one we have the
other” (Suzuki: 54). Siddhartha's long hours sitting by the river at the end of the novel are to
capture something quiet different. Hesse writes, “slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in
Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long
search was.” Siddhartha's quest is one of exalting suffering to its fullest. “I had to become a
fool,” says Siddhartha, “to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to live again.” Thus
the path of attachment and the path of suffering is taken by Siddhartha to discover 'wisdom.' This
is not the teachings of the Buddha, these are the teachings of European existentialism and self-
denial like that portrayed in Parsifal or in the sufferings of Christ.
His final utterance on Buddhism is a naive critique: “When the exalted Gautama spoke in
his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth,
into suffering and salvation” (Hesse: 130). But Hesse has overlooked what is known as the
Dharma of Non-Duality which is best expressed by Buddha's 'Thunderous Silence.' Buddha
would have actually not made that division arbitrarily. The division itself is illusory, and a
teaching device. As to its actual existence, no comment can be given. But one could say,
“saṃsāra and nirvana are two. But when we understand the ultimate nature of saṃsāra,
saṃsāra vanishes from our consciousness and there is neither bondage nor release” (Suzuki:
106). That is to say that concepts such as nirvana and saṃsāra are not the ultimate reality, which

13. An Apology 13
is non-dual.
Conclusions
Hesse was a romantic. Siddhartha had been a spiritual practice for him. It had been the
culmination of his entering an inner “land of the east.” Every time he sat to paint Siddhartha he
was in a sense exploring his own psychology. Thus the tale shows a pattern of thought native to
Europe. The Vedic symbols, in a sense, unlocked meanings which as an artist he interpreted but
interpreted in a western context. They carried Christian meanings. Kamala symbolizes the
woman in Hesse's life. Govinda shows us Hesse's way-ward friend, “the Leo aspect that goes
missing in the Journey to the East.”
Although his name suggests the attainment of his goal, Siddhartha fails to achieve any of
his goals. He wanders around isolated and confused. The final lesson for him is that there is a
lesson in suffering. We are not shown a means by which follow the Buddha's eightfold path.
Instead, we are shown evidence of the Western conflict, of the Western need to suffer to feel. In
the end, Hesse himself expresses to a friend, “Siddharta wird, wenn er stirbt, nicht Nirwana
wollen, sondern neuen Umlauf, neue Gestaltung, Wiedergeburt.” (Siddhartha, when he dies,
won't want nirvana, instead a new cycle, new embodiment, a new rebirth) (Reclam: 159).
After the writing of Siddhartha, Hesse retires his notions of a fruitful 'journey to the east.'
He goes on to write Steppenwolf and Narziss und Goldmund both of which take place in a
European setting. They go on to explore the meaning of suffering, and find several conclusions,
but from a lens more adjusted to Hesse's cultural context.

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“The Bhagavad-gītā describes knowledge as 'accepting the importance of self-realization,
and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth” (Gosvami: 2). In this way, Hesse is not guilty
of endeavoring artistic catharsis but in presupposing spiritual truths of the East. He made several
mistakes along the way. His “Indischen Dichtung” bares a misleading title. Upon closer
inspection the dichtung reveals to be a European fairytale. When it is judged as such, it will bare
its fruits on the sufferings of Christians and of “Outsiders” such as Hermann Hesse. But it leaves
Eastern spiritual practices behind a misconstrued and idealistic veil.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chatterjee, S. & Datta, D. (1968). “General Introduction,” An Introduction to Indian Philosophy.
Calcutta; Calcutta University Press. pp. 1-52.
Satprakashananda, Swami. (1974). Methods of Knowledge According to Advaita Vedanta.
Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. pp. 35-40
Harvey, P. (1990). An Introduction to Buddhism. Boston: Cambridge University Press
Suzuki, D.T. (1907). Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism. Luzac and Co. London, England
Aurobindo, G. (1964). On the Veda. Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Pondicherry, India
Aurobindo, G. (1967). Key to Vedic Symbolism. Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Pondicherry, India
Gosvami, Satsvarupa (1977) Readings in Vedic Literture. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Los
Angeles.
Hesse, Hermann (1922) Siddhartha. Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Middell, Eike. (1972) Hermann Hesse. Verlag Philipp Reclam. Leipzig, Germany.