In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sitslistening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once awandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, hefollowed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But thisman, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Bornthe son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance,intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, hediscarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic.Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure andtitillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he wasjust like all the other "child people," dragged around by hisdesires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling youngmen, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubbornindividualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist andthe Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor adevotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blendin with the world, res
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