Siddhartha
EditionTranslated from the original German
A young Brahmin leaves home to find the self, meets the Buddha without following him, and learns at last from a river.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
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DRM-free files. Translation CC BY-NC 4.0; the original work is in the public domain.
About the book
Siddhartha, a Brahmin’s son in ancient India, leaves his father’s house with his friend Govinda to live as a wandering ascetic. He hears the Buddha teach and honors him, but will not become his disciple: what the Buddha found, he believes, cannot be learned from any teaching. He goes into the world instead, learns love from the courtesan Kamala and trade from the merchant Kamaswami, grows rich, and loses himself, until a river and an old ferryman named Vasudeva show him another way.
This complete English translation is made directly from the German of the first edition of 1922. Hesse called the book an Indian poem, and its prose moves like one, in long sentences and returning phrases; these are kept, and each of the 524 paragraphs of the original appears as one paragraph.
Highlights
- I can think. I can wait. I can fast.
- Seeking means having a goal. But finding means being free, standing open, having no goal.
- Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom.
Contents
Anyone can read up to the first chapter. Chapters with a lock are open to free members.
Colophon
Translated from the original German. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
Siddhartha
An Indian Poem
Original title · Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung
Author · Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
Translator · Ether Library
First publication · 1922, S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin.
Source text · A public-domain digital transcription of the first edition (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1922). Translated directly from the German.
Extent · Complete and unabridged · two parts, twelve chapters · 524 paragraphs, as in the original · no translator’s notes
Copyright · First published in 1922, the original work is in the public domain in the United States. The author died in 1962; the work is also in the public domain in Korea. In the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries with a term of life plus seventy years, it remains protected until the end of 2032.
This translation · Translated from the German by Ether Library. The English text is © Ether Library and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0): you may copy and share it for noncommercial purposes, with attribution.
Edition · English edition 1.0 · October 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Original in the public domain (United States, Korea) · English translation CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0010