Presentation of Eastern Philosophy: Portrayal of Buddhism through Christian Eyes in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

Abstract

Hesse's Siddhartha is an attack on eastern religions, culture, and people. The eastern philosophy of life presented by Hesse has been distorted by creating a mouth piece character named Siddhartha. Siddhartha’s doubt and denial over his own ethical, religious values and journey of self is colored with Hesse’s own Eurocentric values, where there is a belief that a man can be free from all bondages when he questions his present existence and tries to pave his own ways as Siddhartha has done in the novel. So the novel is purely western despite the Indic garment, names, setting, religions, people, it carries. It is nothing but the distortion of the reality. It is western archetype because the protagonist’s faith resembles western believes. So Siddhartha is a perfect example of a westerner’s way of distorting the reality through which they try to prove that their religions, cultures etc are best whereas rest are worst to follow and impose their western values and hegemonize non-westerners. In relation to women representation too, they are stereotypically represented and even portrayed as a whore. So many more evidences are brought out in the textual analysis to substantiate the researcher’s claim on drawing analogy with the theories and theorists related with the idea of representation as per the need.