Siddhartha Symbolism In Siddhartha

Humanity has strived to rid itself of suffering since the dawn of man. The history of religious teachings tells us that even the most primitive humans understood pain, suffering, sin, and even evil. The development of complicated belief systems spawned from a need to atone for human evils. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are some of these belief systems which were created to give an explanation to the world and the suffering it brings. The fundamentals of these religions all revolve around attaining a form of salvation or enlightenment. Hinduism and Buddhism are more driven towards attaining enlightenment while Christianity promises salvation. The themes in the novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse reflect the basic fundamentals of Hinduism, …show more content…
The Buddha, also known as Gotama, is one of the only people who is enlightened in the novel. The duo go to find him to inquire about how one becomes enlightened. They hope to find out what the real path is. “Siddhartha saw him…gently inwardly.” (27) is the moment when they see the Buddha. The most important aspect of the Buddha that Siddhartha notices is the peace he displays. He doesn’t show happiness or love. This ensures Siddhartha that the Buddha is the one he should follow. He has high expectations for Gotama but he finds a flaw in his teachings and chooses not to become a follower of the Buddha. Govinda on the other hand takes control of his fate and follows Gotama, becoming a Buddhist monk. Siddhartha does become a Buddhist, but he doesn’t follow Gotama directly. This is the next step in Siddhartha’s cycle of creation and destruction. Since he is now a Buddhist and the fundamentals of Hinduism are more subtle, the fundamentals of Buddhism become more apparent. The theme of solitude begins to show up more. “Siddhartha…speak?” (41) demonstrates how the loneliness and solitude he feels is ironic. He hates it, but so much of the religion he now follows has to be done in solitude. At this point, Siddhartha isn’t entirely sure of what he wants, but he is sure of what he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want pain and suffering anymore. An important aspect of Buddhism is detachment …show more content…
In order to court Kamala, he needed to “have clothes… for Kamala.” (54). Kamala begins his next cycle of death and rebirth by forcing him to abandon his ideals in order to be with her. It is entirely counterintuitive for a Buddhist to be rich, and yet Siddhartha does this for love. Love. This is a fundamental aspect of Christianity. It is so powerful, it makes even the strongest men give up their life’s work. All this time, Siddhartha has tried to achieve enlightenment through meditation, deprivation, and sacrificing to the gods. But all it took was the most important aspect of Christianity to sway him from this path. “For a long time Siddhartha had lived the life of the world without belonging to it.” (75) shows what love did to Siddhartha. He reveled in feasts, drinking, sex, and money, but for what? At the end of the day, Siddhartha knew he wasn’t happy and that he wasn’t enlightened. Love was tearing him apart, but why? Siddhartha knew what love was, but he never really knew how to love. It wasn’t until Siddhartha leaves the secular world, and Kamala that he begins to revert back to the Siddhartha attempting to achieve enlightenment. The love that he had with Kamala did have something good come out of it. Besides simply making him a man of the world, the love also spawned a child also named Siddhartha. This child helped father Siddhartha realize that there