The Teacher List
Near the end of Siddhartha, a friend asks the hero who his teachers were. He says he does not follow any teacher. Then he lists them anyway. A courtesan. A rich merchant. Some gamblers with dice. A traveller who followed the Buddha. And, most of all, a river and a ferryman.
So who are all these people, and what happens to them? I read the Project Gutenberg text of Hermann Hesse’s novel and counted how often every name is used. This spoils the whole book, so finish it first if you want the ending kept quiet.
The Name Count
These counts are mine, and they cover the twelve chapters of the story. Siddhartha is named about four hundred and three times. Govinda comes next, at one hundred and forty-five. Then Kamala, eighty-two. Vasudeva, seventy. The Buddha is Gotama forty-six times, and the Buddha fifty-five. Kamaswami, thirty-one.
One warning. Siddhartha’s son has the same name, so that first number covers both of them. And a few of the most important people are never named at all. We will get to them.
Siddhartha
Start with the hero. He is a Brahman’s son, handsome, brilliant, and loved by all, and the book opens by saying he is not a source of joy for himself. He wants one thing, which is to find the true self, and he keeps leaving his teachers behind.
Over twelve chapters, he is a student, a Samana, a lover, a merchant, a gambler, a would-be suicide, a ferryman, a father, and finally a man who smiles. The word smile and its forms appear seventy-seven times in the book, and seventeen of them are in the last chapter. He ends as the person who smiles the most.
Kamala
Kamala is the courtesan in the sedan chair. She is first named in chapter five, and that chapter alone has thirty-seven of her eighty-two mentions. She is clever and funny, and she does not fall for a poor ascetic’s pitch. She tells him that love can be bought, begged or given, but never stolen.
She teaches him the art of love, and she is the first to tell him, in her own way, that he loves nobody. Later she gives her garden to the Buddha’s monks, and she also keeps a singing bird in a golden cage. When he leaves, she lets it go. She is pregnant, and she raises their son. In chapter nine, she is on her way to see the Buddha when a snake bites her. She dies saying that she can see he has found peace.
Kamaswami and the Gamblers
Kamaswami is the merchant, with grey hair, cautious eyes and a greedy mouth, as the text describes him. The text names him thirty-one times, twenty in the single chapter where he hires Siddhartha. He cannot understand a man who never worries.
He is a good example of the childlike people, as Siddhartha calls them. The word childlike turns up twenty-three times. They worry and plan and squabble over small things. Siddhartha mocks them, and then he becomes one. The dice gamblers are never named, but they are the other half of that lesson. At the table, he finds the one thing he can still feel, which is fear. He ends up hating himself.
Govinda
Govinda is the shadow. In the first chapter, the text says he wants to be Siddhartha’s friend, companion, servant, spear carrier and shadow. He follows him to the Samanas, and then he is the first to break away, when he joins the Buddha.
Then he drops out of the story for a long stretch. His name is used once in chapter six, not at all in chapters nine and ten, and just once in chapter eleven. And then it comes back, thirty-seven times in the last chapter, more than in any other chapter. As an old monk, he is still a searcher, and Siddhartha tells him that searching can get in the way of finding. In the list of teachers, Siddhartha never names the Buddha’s follower who guarded his sleep, but the scene can only be Govinda. That is my inference, and it is a good one.
The Two Friends
Look at the first and last scenes together. In chapter one, Siddhartha walks away from home at first light, and Govinda is waiting at the last hut. Siddhartha smiles, and they go on together. Siddhartha tells him in chapter three that he has always walked one step behind.
In the final chapter, it is Govinda who bows and goes on his way, and Siddhartha who stays by the river. The friend who always followed ends by bowing to the ground. In my reading, that is the book’s closing circle. That is my opinion, and I will leave the scene itself for the ending video.
Vasudeva
Vasudeva is the ferryman, and he is the quietest important character in the book. He first appears in chapter five, unnamed, as the man who ferries a young Samana and says that everything comes back. Twenty years later, in chapter nine, he says his name for the first time. From then on, it is used seventy times.
He is not learned. He says so himself. He listens, and he lives by the river. When the boy arrives, Vasudeva is the one who tells Siddhartha that no father can save a child from living his own life. In the end he walks into the forest.
Gotama
Gotama, the Buddha, appears in person in one chapter only, chapter three. The text calls him Gotama forty-six times, and the Buddha fifty-five. His name turns up in eight of the twelve chapters, even when nobody is talking to him.
Siddhartha respects him more than anyone. He says he wishes he could walk and smile the way the Buddha does, and then he refuses the teaching. The Buddha listens, smiles, and warns him about too much wisdom. Years later, when the news of his death spreads, Siddhartha remembers him kindly. The Buddha is the teacher Siddhartha loves most and follows least.
The Father and the Samana
Not everyone gets a name. Siddhartha’s father is called the Brahman, and the word father is used about fifty times, twenty-five of them in chapter one. In chapter one he is the man who checks on his son every hour of the night. Late in the book, Siddhartha sees his own face in the water, and it looks like his father’s.
The oldest Samana is another unnamed teacher. He is the man Siddhartha leaves with a spell, a last display of everything the Samanas taught. In my reading, he and the father stand for the old way of life, which Siddhartha has to leave. That is my opinion.
The Boy
The text calls him young Siddhartha, or Siddhartha the younger. He is about eleven when his mother dies, spoiled, angry, and not at all interested in becoming a holy man. The word boy appears forty-two times, thirty-seven of them in two chapters.
He is the one person Siddhartha cannot convince or let go. He hates the ferry, steals the coins, and runs. In my reading, he is the real last teacher, the one Siddhartha did not choose and did not list. That is my opinion, and the book does not say it.
What the Counts Say
Here is what I take from the numbers. The hero is named four hundred times, but the characters who teach him are the ones you meet for a few chapters at a time. Each one gets a burst of names, then fades, and the book is built like a river with people in it. That is my reading.
If this helped, subscribe, and tell me in the comments which character you think taught him the most.
