Hermann Hesse is a German writer who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946. He was greatly influenced by the Orient and visited India. After one such visit, he penned Siddhartha, the story of a young man looking for the true meaning of life.
I always thought the book (or novella, to be more exact) was about Gautam Buddha's life - his name too was Siddhartha; before he left home and renounced the world. But it's actually about a young man growing up in the same time as Gautam Buddha, who is a Brahmin by birth but chooses to renounce the practices he's been raised with and seek out what existence is.
He encounters the Buddha in one chapter and asks him about life and in particular, the enlightenment. But he's not satisfied with the answer and decides not to join him. Instead, Siddhartha follows a different path.
Apart from being a rejection of the world and materialism; of greed; the book is a deeper introspection into what constitutes life; in one paragraph, it states - if the world is maya, then we too are maya - an illusion. What really matters is love - and it is this that binds us together in this meaningless world.
I did a bit of research on the book and found out that it was written in 1922 - and it followed a personal crisis that the author had faced while working as a Red Cross worker in World War I.
I would recommend this book as a good read to anyone who is interested. It gives good food for thought.
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