Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha: 100 Years since First Publication

October 2022 marks the centenary of the initial publication of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. An Indian Story. It is one of his most important and most widely read works worldwide to this day and has contributed significantly to Hesse’s prominence as a poet and writer. In it, Hesse describes in »Indian guise« his own growth and development on his search for non-denominational wisdom and religiosity, which was the reason for the book’s popularity with its global readership.

There are numerous biographical and cultural influences that shaped this story: the missionary work of Hesse’s family in India, studies on Indian philosophy and Buddhism, a journey to India, self-experiments with asceticism and yoga as well as the discovery of Taoism and the implications for psychoanalysis. Siddhartha is the result of nearly twenty years of researching and learning about Asian philosophy and described the life and path to enlightenment of an Indian Brahmin boy who is a contemporary of the historical Buddha, with whom he shares his first name: Siddhartha. Yet this is not a story about Buddhism, even though the two Siddharthas converse once. Rather, we can find traces of different spiritual movements that enter into a unique and at the same time supra-individual, cross-cultural union. Ultimately, Hesse’s goal was »to fathom what can be believed and worshipped by the individual«.

Hesse observed the slowly but steadily growing reception of his Siddhartha in Europe, India and the world and its translation into numerous Indian languages – thus »returning« to the country in which his grandfather Hermann Gundert lived and worked for many years. Regrettably, Hesse did not live to see the extraordinary success of his work in the USA, where millions of copies of Siddhartha were sold from the mid-1960s and it gained cult status with the Woodstock generation, young people who protested the Vietnam War and the conservative attitude of their parents, nor the hugely popular 1972 film adaption by Conrad Rooks or the book’s longevity, inspiring millions of people to embark on a journey of self-discovery. In India, universities’ departments of German Studies started adding Siddhartha to their reading lists right after its publication in 1922, according to Jyoti Sabharwal, who teaches at the University of Delhi’s Department of German Studies and has done extensive research on Hermann Hesse and his books, cited in an article by DW.

»I think it will always be relevant, even for its bicentennial. People will find relevance in the questions that are raised because the protagonist Siddhartha is an outsider who is looking at society, his life from a distance, and goes beyond it, or outside it, to find meaning,« continues Sabharwal.

The Hermann Hesse Foundation in Montagnola, Switzerland, has organized an exhibition on the 100th anniversary of Siddhartha and we invite readers of all languages to (re)discover Hesse’s masterful story.