Siddhartha

Siddhartha, the world-famous legend of the self-liberation of a young person from family and social heteronomy to an independent life, shows that knowledge cannot be taught by teaching, but can only be acquired through personal experience. Hermann Hesse tells the fictional life story of Buddha - Siddhartha is his first name - and fathoms "what is common to all denominations and human forms of piety, what is above all national differences, what can be believed by every race and every individual. How authentically this Indian poetry has assimilated Buddhist and Taoist ideas is shown not only stylistically in the rhythmic diction of Buddha's speeches, but also in the history of its effects through the millions of copies that the book has been distributed in Asian countries.