Tag: Siddhartha

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Interview Review

The Man Who Upended Societal Norms

In Conversation with Advait Kottary about his debut historical fiction, Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, published by Hachette, May 2023.

At a time, when the world looks for compassion, acceptance, love, kindness, relief from wars, economic downturns, divides drawn by multiple human-made constructs, what kind of a book could provide entertainment, solace and also suggest solutions to human crises?

Perhaps, Advait Kottary’s Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha, comes closest to the kind of book that would encompass all these demands. Many people have written about Buddha and Buddhism, but few have attempted to recreate vividly the life of a prince who rebelled against social norms to uncover a path that more than 2,500 years later continues to be seen as a refuge from violence and hatred. For those who misconstrue Buddhism in the modern political ambience, this book could well be a reminder of what Buddhism is all about.

The writer, Advait Kottary, is an engineer turned actor. Perhaps that is why the visual vividness of the narrative is almost cinematic. The story flows like a stream taking the reader back in time to a period we know very less about. What is amazing is the way in which the author has unfolded the story beginning with Siddhartha’s enlightenment and his journey back through his life in that state. This unique situation gives the Buddha the advantage of not just revisiting scenes but also to visit those aspects of his life and that of others which he could not possibly have witnessed in reality. The Enlightened One witnesses his own birth, his mother’s demise, many battles and courts that he had never ventured into. At a point in his journey, Buddha brings to readers Prince Siddhartha’s dejection despite winning a war. Kottary narrates: “Siddhartha burst into tears. The man was right and all his anger was for the war itself, not directed towards the soldier in front of him… They had won the war, but at what cost?” These are pertinent questions that perhaps, if world leaders asked themselves, we would not have had Bakhmut (Ukraine) or the World Wars.

As Siddhartha finds his peace leaving his palatial home, he realises that he is fortunate to have a family that gives him the freedom to complete his quest (though initially with reluctance). He reflects on why he needs to go on this journey, upending the lives of his family, traditions and even his kingdom. He tells his first teacher, Alara Kalama, “At the root of all the customs and the things we consider to be tradition, I could find no answers, other than the ones that said we live in one way, simply because that is what we are accustomed to; whether it is by virtue of following the habits of one’s parents, or the habits of those in the world around us.”

While raising pertinent issues that need to be brought to the fore in the present context through Buddha’s journey, the detailed research that Kottary has put in is evident. People get drunk on Tongba, a pre-historic recipe for an alcoholic brew of millet which is still in use. Authenticity is enhanced by an interplay of historic incidents, including acceptance of Buddha’s beliefs by one of the bloodiest kings of Indian history, Ajaatshatru, who killed his own father, Bimbisara, drove his mother to death, fell in love with his father’s concubine and razed a city down to find her. Reading of the change wrought by Buddhism in such a ruthless man, one can find hope in the darkest of times. Maybe, like Ajaatshatru, mindless, warmongering political overlords will have a change of heart at some point.

The book is racy despite the factual content. It reads like a well-written fiction. Perhaps it is a bit of that for after all, could we really know what Buddha said to his wife? But what we do know is his wife supported him and became a bhikshuni at the end. The narrative flows — sometimes, calm and reflective while Buddha talks, and sometimes, moving through turbulence, war, intrigue and violence providing a counterfoil to Buddha’s own quest. At the end of every episode, there is that moment of stillness induced by the enlightened one’s comment as he moves towards a new scene from his past.

Each scene brings us closer to the resolution of how the personal and the larger-than-life quest combine to create a sense of harmony at the end. The narrative has the ageless innocence, elegance and wisdom of Oscar Wilde’s stories like “The Happy Prince”.  Kottary, a debuting author with the ability to create a compelling tale, explains what went into the making of this remarkable book in this interview.

Buddha is a subject much written about. And yet, you have given this book a unique twist. What made you select the life of Buddha as your debut venture into the arena of historical fiction? 

I think I’ve always been fascinated with history and stories from the past, wondering how much of it happened the way we imagine it, and constantly imagining what life was like in any age of the past.

The story of Siddhartha, or the Buddha, came to me at a very interesting time in my life. I had just quit my engineering job, and though I vaguely knew I wanted to act and write, I had no real clue what lay ahead. It was at this time that I found a copy of Old Path, White Clouds by the revered Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hath, at home. At the time, Mom (Gajra Kottary) was reading it for research for a television show she was scripting, and I began to read it, often just opening up to a different random page every time and reading about a fascinating story from Siddhartha’s life. Over the years, I began to read more and more about the life of Siddhartha, beyond the basic facts I had learned in school, and found it so striking that a lot of questions that Siddhartha had from his life and his world, were the same questions that we have from life today. At a stage I was trying to find my feet in life, something resonated within me, and I found so many facets of his life that barely anyone knew about… I felt compelled to tell the story, and it seemed only natural to tell it through his eyes.

What kind of research went into your book? How many years did it take you to create the final product?

If I’m honest I can’t really quantify the amount of research that went into it, I can just sum it up and say, A LOT! Through each and every draft of the book, I’d read more and more about the subject, and there were so many beautiful tales that couldn’t make it to the final manuscript too! But it took more than five years of writing, rewriting, and rethinking. Several drafts were involved. Of course, there were other things I was doing, but putting the book aside for a few months, and revisiting it made me come back with a fresh perspective too, which really helped the process.

How much is fact and how much fiction? Tell us about the journey of the book.

History is certainly the greatest storyteller, and most of what you read in the book is fact. The places, the people, and most of the incidents are all part of recorded history. I had to imagine a lot of the interpersonal relationships involved in the story while weaving the narrative, especially since I was telling the tale from Siddhartha’s point of view. It was therefore critical to understand where he was in his spiritual journey at the time those things happened.

And to be honest that is what fascinated me the most, the lesser-known parts surrounding the known facts and bullet points of history. I couldn’t find Siddhartha’s angst really being dissected before, or his pain being talked about, because history often makes us think of him as a sea of calm, a stoic man. As I went through the drafts, I understood that in this layer of emotions lay something that perhaps we hadn’t thought of before. And of course, we know now that Siddhartha found the answers he was looking for, but back when he left the palace and renounced his life, he had no idea if he would ever find what he was looking for. Can you imagine the turmoil of someone who can surrender the rest of their time to finding an answer they may never actually find? There was a great human tale there, and I wanted to delve into the things in his life that built up to that journey, while learning more about it myself. 

You have unfolded the Eightfold Path through Buddha’s personal journey, bringing in his own life experiences into play. Is that something you found in the course of your research or was it your own conclusion? Please elaborate.

A lot of it was down to research, and documented incidents in the life of Siddhartha, but I feel like especially when telling the story of Siddhartha’s life from his own point of view, it was essential to bring his own life experiences into play. Siddhartha’s learnings were often through practice and self-experimentation, a theme that is echoed throughout the book.

There are many personalised details which recreate a distant time period that is unknown to us. What went into giving authenticity to these unknown persons, their thoughts, conversations and tying them up to give us a picture of the times? How did you create characters from the past that could touch on contemporary issues and hearts?

I think it’s easy to think of characters of the past as unidimensional beings. Often that is how history is academically taught to us; good person – bad person, winner – loser etc. But when telling a story, it would be a huge injustice on my part if I did the same. As an actor, the biggest strength one can have is empathy, and every character I’ve played, I’ve always had to personalise the motivations, the desires, the fears and the joys of them all. I tried to think of all the characters in Siddhartha in the same manner. For example, it would have been easy for us to think about Siddhartha’s father, King Shuddhodana, as wrong for sheltering him from the realities of life, like pain, suffering and death. But that would be such a myopic view of what happened, and not taking into account the prophecies that had been told to him, and the fact that Siddhartha had been born after years and years of wanting a child; the stakes were incredibly high!

All it took was a little curiosity and deep thinking into why these characters did what they did; they were simply following their convictions in that moment… Most of it seemed logical, given we knew what each of these characters wanted at different points in time, but of course there was a fair bit of imagination when it came to their conversations. I was always fascinated by how each character would be at their most vulnerable, because that is a part of history that is never touched upon, and I’ve tried to do that in Siddhartha.

You have touched on many contemporary concerns in your book— war, the need to question traditions. You have even said something very deep when you had Buddha say: “Acceptance can only happen when there is no ego.” Was all this done intentionally, or did it just happen in the flow of events? Please elucidate.

When I first began to think about the story of Siddhartha, what struck me was always the contemporary relevance of the questions Siddhartha asked, more than 2500 years ago… Siddhartha always questioned everyone around him, but it was with a view to understand the universe and the world that he was born into. If he didn’t understand, he asked, and with every answer he got from people or the world around him, came new understanding and new questions too. A lot of it happened in the flow of events; but what was challenging was understanding the internal journey of Siddhartha through these events, his emotions and learnings as he grew up, and that had to be intentional in journey and design.


You have been living in London. Did you visit the parts of the Indian subcontinent you have written about?

Yes! It was a surreal experience for me, I had the good fortune of being able to visit Sarnath and Bodh Gaya from Varanasi. I can tell you that photos do not do the Dhamekh Stupa justice, it’s a beautiful and tranquil place, almost like you’ve stepped into a different world.

Did any films, writers or books impact your choices and the way you executed the book? What writers, artistes impact you as a writer?

Growing up as the son of a journalist and a scriptwriter, I’d be lying if I said my parents Sailesh and Gajra Kottary hadn’t strongly influenced my writing. I’ve also been inspired by Antione de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince and the way it spoke of such beautiful thoughts in such a simple manner, a principle I tried to keep in mind while writing Siddhartha. Some of my favourite films are Dr. Strangelove, the Batman Trilogy, and the television series, Succession. I’m quite fond of storytelling in general as an actor and creator, and I have this weird habit of trying to piece together the narrative in everything I see, maybe even an advertisement in a magazine, deconstructing it and analysing the choices made by the creators.

Your novel is very cinematic. Are there plans afoot to make it into a film, considering the choices you have made, choosing acting over engineering and cars? Did your mother, Gajra Kottary, a major screenplay writer in India, have an impact on the choices you made and your journey as a writer?

Thank you! I’m a very visual thinker, so when I read or write about something, I watch it unfold like a movie in my mind, perhaps that is reflected to some extent in my writing. I have had interest expressed in the book from a couple of wonderful filmmakers, and hopefully I’ll have some amazing news to share soon!

My mother has been the greatest writing influence in my life, and I have to give her credit in that she has only guided and taught me and never tried to influence my decisions in the kind of work or projects that I take up.

So, what are your plans for the future? Any more books coming our way?

Yes, most certainly! I’ve got two drafts screaming at me for attention. One is about the life of another historical figure, closer to modern times, who lead an unbelievable life. The other one is pure fiction and more in the genre of dark humour; a dystopian take on modern civilisation, but again centred around a clear protagonist.

I’m living in London now and continue to act and perform in theatre as well, so there’s always something exciting happening on that front. I’ve also had some interest in Siddhartha from some wonderful film makers, so fingers crossed something visually beautiful can be born from this. So the hunt for great stories continues!

Thank you so much for your time and your lovely book.

(The review & online interview conducted through emails are by Mitali Chakravarty)

Click here to read an excerpt from Siddhartha: The Boy Who Became the Buddha

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Categories
Editorial

Catch a Falling Star…

Art by Sohana Manzoor
For when your troubles starting multiplying
And they just might
It's easy to forget them without trying
With just a pocketful of starlight

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away (never let it fade away)
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day

'Catch a Falling Star' by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss

Perhaps, it is time to find that fallen star popularised by pop singer Perry Como is 1957. Optimism glimmers faintly, sometimes even conceals itself, in a world passing through a dark phase in history. For instance, few of us would know that we might find more answers to tackle  climate change as dinosaur fossils (from the time an asteroid hit the planet) have been unearthed recently. That sounds like solutions can be had to what was perceived as inevitable doom.

Another bit of news that perhaps will cheer some is the first anthology of Borderless Journal will soon be available in market. It has been accepted by a publisher, an old, trusted and reputed name from India, Om Books International. They have bookshops splattered all over — should make it easy for buyers to access the book. Hopefully, you can target the anthology for your Diwali or Christmas gift hampers. Om Books has one of the most iconic editors-in chief, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri. A multiple award-winning editor, he has worked in Penguin and Harper Collins and is currently churning out wonderful books from Om with a fabulous production team, working with whom has been a pleasure. Ray Chaudhuri is an outstanding film writer and poet. He is part of a group that is creating a film archive online. To know more about him or his views on publishing, you can read our online conversation with him.

The energy one gets from optimism like starlight from a fallen star, lightens the darker shadows that create gloom with the war leading to rise in prices and threats of recession in a post pandemic scenario. Lesya Bakun, the refugee from Ukraine whose story we carried last month, finds her starlight by sharing updates of her story.  She added to her narrative with the news that her cousin has been taken as a prisoner of war by Russia from the besieged factory in Ukraine. Though sharing does not alleviate suffering, Bakun’s ability to cling to hope and imagine a future where she gets her dream highlights the strength of her convictions. The other thing that is revealed by her narrative and media coverage is exclusivity and boxes of ideology split humankind, erase families, cities, countries, lives and sanity. The war can appease only the lust of warlords. Against this desolation caused by the devastation, what could be the starlight that would lead to a happier future?

Laughter. Unleashing the ability to laugh at oneself is as potent as laughter that generates relief and lightens our mood, so that we can view differences as whimsical, treat them with tolerance and compassion and not destroy the diversities that add colours to the world. Perhaps, that is why Tagore took to humour too. Somdatta Mandal has translated a series of humorous skits by Tagore. We are featuring one of these called the ‘Ordeal of Fame’. Yet another translation or transcreation of a poem called ‘Lukochuri’ or ‘Hide and Seek’ reflects the playful in Tagore’s oeuvre. These, along with Rhys Hughes humour on the pandemic in poetry and prose, bring good cheer into our journal. Hughes has also used his column to tell us why he curated a new humorous anthology of verses by seventeen poets called Wuxing Lyrical. I wonder if he is serious or joking!

We were fortunate to have a tongue-in-cheek online discussion with an academic with a witty sense of humour who started a book based on his PhD research with a limerick, Amit Ranjan, author of John Lang the Wanderer of Hindoostan, Slanderer in Hindoostan, Lawyer for the Ranee. While Ranjan brought to us a narrative of an Australian who challenged the colonial mindset, went to court representing the Rani of Jhansi, wrote for Charles Dickens in Household Words and moved around the world just like one of us, hopping jobs and looking for a life, we have diverse cultural streams woven into the journal with translations of a Balochi folktale from Fazal Baloch, a Korean poem by Ihlwha Choi and Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of Jibananda’s poetry, an ongoing project in Borderless.

The Nithari column has yielded us a story that was written in a mix of Hindi and English by Yogesh Uniyal and translated fully to English by Nirbhay Bhogal. We have strange stories this time. Nileena Sunil’s short narrative and Paul Mirabile’s longer one set in Madrid explore the unusual. More stories delve into the intricacies of the human mind.

As we trot around the globe, Suzanne Kamata tells us about a Monet museum in Japan where she ate madeleines made with the artist’s recipe! Meredith Stephens sails to Tasmania with her camera and gives us a glimpse of nature’s plenty. Ravi Shankar relates his trekking adventures among the Himalayas in Nepal, with awesome photographs of these mountains, while Kenny Peavy who lives in Indonesia dwells on the value of falling down and getting up in a light humorous vein against the backdrop of nature – though metaphorically perhaps the world needs to do that. We have G Venkatesh’s story about his stay in Johannesburg where he discovers that skin tones do not matter.

Ratnottama Sengupta makes the whole world look like a home with the story of a legendary screenwriter, Jean Claude Carriere, who wrote the script of Mahabharata for Peter Brook’s play (1985) of the same name and the subsequent film (1989) — with characters drawn from all over the world. Candice gives us an overview of the pandemic, with more focus on US where she lives.

Mike Smith travels back to another time when an ailment called World War II raged and has revived a writer from the past, HE Bates (1905-1974). We have another essay by Dan Meloche on a legendary book which turned 100 this year — Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. Rakhi Dalal revisits more than a century old translation by Devabrata Mukherjee of Tagore’s The Post Office which bears relevance to the present day as it shows how the human spirit endures over even the darkness of death.

Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Radhika Gupta’s Limitless: The Power of Unlocking Your True Potential, by his assessment a book that inspires youngsters to take charge of their future. On the other hand, there are books that explore the darkest in humans. Basudhara Roy has reviewed a collection short stories by Sunil Sharma called Burn the Library & Other Fiction. Indrashish Banerjee reviews Upamanyu Chatterjee’s latest novel based on modern day crimes, Villainy, from which we are carrying a book excerpt too. The other excerpt is from a narrative written from a refugee’s perspective, Ramy Al-Asheq’s Ever Since I Did Not Die, translated by Isis Nusair from Arabic. Born in a refugee camp in Damascus, this Syrian-Palestinian poet defies all genres to touch hearts with brutal honesty. No less sincere is Michael Burch’s poetry on summer that ushers in the season as much as Sohana’s beautiful painting that we are using as our cover photo. We have poetry from not just Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri but also by George Freek, S. Srinivas, Tohm Bakelas, Abin Chakraborty, Marianne Tefft and many more. As usual, I have not mentioned all the treats in store for you. Delve into our contents page and browse to find out more.

Before winding up, I would want to extend my thanks not only to our team and contributors, but also to our publisher who is willing to republish our content with some tweaking. Thanks to our readers who, I hope, will be excited to have selected content between their palms as a hardcopy anthology with 49 of our most iconic pieces. We have more than a thousand published works. This anthology will be an iconic sample that you can carry anywhere with you even if there is no internet – that would include Mars and Moon!

I wish you happy reading, happy dreaming and hope… plenty of it.

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Categories
Essay

Hesse’s Siddhartha: Towards a Shadowless Present

Dan Meloche revisits a hundred-year-old classic by Herman Hesse that is based on Buddhist lore

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962). Courtesy: Creative Commons
He who binds to himself a joy 
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies 
Lives in eternity's sunrise. 
– Eternity, William Blake(1757-1827)

Blake challenges his readers to move beyond everyday existence and delve “out of time” into the eternal presence of a moment. In Hermann Hesse’s novel published a hundred years ago, Siddhartha (1922), the titular character embarks on a similar quest to break the bonds of temporality and move towards eternity and spiritual awakening. The bonds that tie him to the temporal include relations with family, friends, a lover, a business associate, and holy men. The latter include Brahmins, Samanas, and the Buddha: all of whom provide unsatisfactory direction with knowledge that, ultimately, becomes useless and distorted by time’s passage. For Siddhartha, relying on temporally bound advice, from temporally bound humans serves no advantage when aspiring to the eternal.

Early in the novel, a dream suggests Siddhartha’s aspiration. Whereas Blake symbolises the eternal with a sunrise, Hesse uses the vast, ever-flowing permanency of a river: “Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river.” Called by the river to the eternal, Siddhartha begins to detach from all relationships that bind him to history and time. To experience the eternal present, Siddhartha must unbind from both his father and son, suggestive, respectively, of past and future.  With these, and other detachments, Siddhartha untethers from the temporal attachments to produce the “readiness of soul” necessary to experience the eternal present.

In the opening chapter, Siddhartha’s spiritual restlessness evokes its most profound exhortation in his defiance of his father, a holy Brahmin. By leaving home, Siddhartha separates himself from his past and rejects a life pledged to holy books and learning. More than youthful rebellion, Siddhartha’s defiance represents a repudiation of book learning and the Brahmins as “they did not know the one important thing.”  As they anchor knowledge in the past, books and learning have no use to Siddhartha, who seeks to transcend the time continuum.  Unbound from the twin anchors of his past, his father and the Brahmins, Siddhartha joins a group of ascetics, the Samanas, with his friend Govinda.

Continuing his journey to the eternal, Siddhartha pores himself into the experiential exercises associated with asceticism: thinking, waiting, and fasting. With seeming ease, Siddhartha perfects his practice. Yet, he rejects practices that serve only as a “temporary palliative” that could be learned “more quickly and easily in every inn in a prostitute’s quarter, amongst the carriers and dice players.”

Produced and subsequently distorted in the temporal realm, the Samanas knowledge is insufficient to produce the awakening Siddhartha craves. Further, were he to heed the wisdom of holy men and ascetics, he would only further bind himself to the temporal realm from which he seeks escape.

Leaving the Samanas, Siddhartha fortifies his belief in the uselessness of knowledge. Not even Govinda’s enthusiasm to see a charismatic spiritual leader can dissuade Siddhartha from his well-formed belief. When the Buddha’s popularity grows, Govinda’s interest to hear the Illustrious One is met with Siddhartha’s resignation. Uninterested in learning from holy men, Siddhartha confronts the Buddha by stating that “nobody finds salvation through teachings.”  That is, the Buddha’s awakening is an incommunicable event experienced outside of time which cannot be taught or duplicated. Therefore, trying to explain “in time” that which occurred “out of time” is futile. In addition to rejecting the Buddha’s teachings, Siddhartha further unbinds himself from his past by leaving his friend, Govinda, as he bids him well: “May you travel this path to the end.”

Limited by temporal bonds, Govinda’s path to wisdom and knowledge has a reachable end. However, for Siddhartha, such confinements represent obstacles to moving outside of time. Parting from Govinda, Siddhartha further detaches from his personal history and associations to time. Only by releasing himself from the temporal can he prepare himself for communion with the eternal. Continuing alone, Siddhartha avails himself of a spiritual moment and is transfixed by the permanency of nature. This meditative glimpse of the eternal anticipates his goal: communion with the unity of all things.

However, the path to enlightenment is rarely straight as sexual desire stalls Siddhartha’s journey towards timelessness.  Powerless to the charms of the beautiful courtesan Kamala, Siddhartha loses all yearnings for spiritual ascendancy and returns to temporality and the material world. To pay for his tutelage in the sexual arts, Siddhartha masters commercial trade to generate income. Disdainful of the mastery and accrual of money, Siddhartha attaches no value to his gains as he squanders his wealth gambling. Burdened by temporality, Siddhartha wears a discontent wrought by unhealthy attachments: “the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.”

Mastery of the sexual arts leads to a comparable weariness as the limitation of his passion with Kamala is mutually understood: “People like us cannot love.” In their loveless union, Siddhartha and Kamala desperately try “to extract the last sweet drop of fleeting pleasure.” As pleasure evaporates, so does Siddhartha’s desire to remain committed to the temporally bound pursuit of love. Feeling spiritually deprived by the pursuits of sex, money, and possessions, Siddhartha clearly sees the absurdity of time-bound relationships. Just as his loveless romance withers, his possessions of a mango tree and a garden are also deflating. To Siddhartha, how can nature, the image of eternity, be possessed?

Spurred by a dream of a dead bird, Siddhartha leaves everything to sit by a river and evaluate his life’s worth and considers a permanent unbinding from the suffering associated with temporal existence: “He looked down and was completely filled with a desire to let himself go and be submerged in the water.” Unfulfilled by all temporal desires, Siddhartha gambles with higher stakes: the desire for death. Having tried, and even mastered, engagement in the temporal domain, Siddhartha found it to be “a troubled spring of deep water”. In his moment of crisis, Siddhartha finds no solace in holy words, but is restored by the wordless, echoed distillation of the eternal, the universe’s vibration, the Om. The troubled waters of temporality then become the life-giving force of an eternally flowing river. Siddhartha recognises the river as his portal to the eternal: a place he “would not leave it again so quickly”.

On his way to the permanent harbour by the river, Siddhartha finds the ferryman, Vasudeva. The humble, taciturn ferryman becomes Siddhartha’s spiritual guide. Although Siddhartha claimed after meeting the Buddha, “no other teachings will attract me,” he finds in Vasudeva a teacher who directs rather than preaches. Vasudeva’s singular precept: “Love this river, stay by it, learn from it.” Sharing ferrying duties, Siddhartha permanently settles at the river’s edge to receive Vasudeva’s help with unbinding from one final temporal link.

After the Kamala’s death, Vasudeva returns to the ferrymen’s hut with Siddhartha’s son, who reacts with tantrums and runs away. Unnaturally loquacious, Vasudeva recounts Siddhartha’s life and experience and points out that to find home, one must leave home. Unpursued, the boy leaves Siddhartha with a “burning wound”. To extinguish this fiery pain, Siddhartha needs direction from Vasudeva, who becomes less man and more deity: “that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal itself.” Carrying on with his ferrying duties, Siddhartha witnesses the love between others and feels jealous. This vanity compels him “one day, when the wound burned violently”, to follow his desire to find and make up with his son. Before binding himself again to temporality, Vasudeva instructs Siddhartha to seek counsel with the river. Standing before the river, ready to be relieved of his suffering, Siddhartha receives the river’s unequivocal response: “It laughed! It laughed clearly.” From the river’s eternal perspective, individual desire and suffering have little consequence to the limitless expanse of experience that comprises the unity of all things.

Further instructed to look into the river, Siddhartha not only sees images of his father, his lover, and his friend, but hears the multitude of sorrows, yearning, and suffering of humankind that coalesce into the “song of a thousand voices.” This song, representing “all things” beyond the temporal blends into the eternal perfection that is Om. With the extinguishing of Siddhartha’s “burning wound,” his final bind to the temporal is broken. Emptying all his pain and history into the river, Siddhartha is fully unbound from temporal existence thereby liberating his soul to the eternal.

In the novel’s final chapter, Siddhartha reunites with his friend, the still questing Govinda, who has sought out the mysterious wise man by the river. Siddhartha convinces his old friend that time is not real. Inspired by Siddhartha’s peacefulness, Govinda solicits inspirational advice. Unwilling to limit explanation with mere words, Siddhartha offers to share with Govinda a glimpse into the eternal. As Govinda bows to kiss Siddhartha’s forehead, he witnesses the parade of humankind (babies, murderers, and lovers) in the thousand-fold permutations of love, hate, birth, and death.

Authenticated by the experience of sharing the eternal present with Govinda, Siddhartha represents a fully awakened being. Whereas Govinda had been confounded by seeking a specific end goal, Siddhartha focused on the readiness of soul that comes with unbinding from temporal relationships, riches, and knowledge. Released from the time-bound continuum, Siddhartha releases his suffering into the channel of eternity that the river represents. Only by experiencing the suffering associated with temporal existence can Siddhartha then unbind to move outside the shadows of both the past and future into the eternal shadowless present.

Dan Meloche is a full-time professor at Algonquin College in Ottawa. When he isn’t teaching English, social psychology, and economics, he reads widely and writes reviews and personal account essays

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL