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What does the river symbolize? How significant is to Siddartha’s quest for enlightenment?
Throughout the novel, there are many intelligent references to earth like elements to help the reader connect and understand Siddartha and the way he thinks. The entirety of the novel is about Siddhartha’s journey through life and finding oneself. The book takes place during the time of the Buddah and this gives Siddhartha a chance to meet him and to seek knowledge and to find enlightenment. Him and his friend Govinda, undertake a spiritual journey to fulfill the emptiness that Siddartha is feeling. Siddartha learns many new concepts and ideas and starts to understand what reaching enlightenment truly means to himself. The river in the book symbolizes his journey of life and time. The way the course of his life went and the path that he took are all relevant to the concept of the flow of the river. It is significant to Siddhartha’s quest for enlightenment because it represents the constant flowing of life and how each unique detail about the sounds, the divine essence of the river and the constant cycle of returning water all correlate back to helping Siddhartha understand essentially the meaning/purpose of life.
The first time Siddartha interacted with the river was after he had just left the samanas and his friend Govinda, who had been with for three years. He spends the night with the ferryman and on his way to the city he sits and reflects on the beauty of the river. The ferryman tells Siddhartha that “It is a beautiful river. I love everything about it. I have often listened to it, gazed at it, and I have always learned something from it. One can learn much from a river.” (Pg 40). When the ferryman says this, it gives an inference to the reader and to Siddartha that in the future, the river will play an important role in his life. This was the moment when siddhartha was able to see and appreciate the beauty of the river, the pale glistening of the river. Resembling in the future the path of his life. This will allow him to start to understand that he will be able to attain enlightenment and be able to learn from nature.
Siddhartha has had many travels and spent much time on the journey to figure himself out the meaning of life. He has experienced restraint from any physical desire, as well as allowing himself to indulge in every physical desire. Yet neither of these seemed to allow siddartha to get any closer to reaching enlightenment. After many years of only learning so much from the samanas and the Brahams, and after a decade of gambling and drinking, Siddartha feels as though the goodness in his soul has died after he has a dream about throwing a dead songbird into the street. He feels empty inside so he wanders over to the river where he once rode with the ferryman, to commit suicide feeling there is nothing left he can do. But just as he allows himself to die, he hears the river say “Om”, and siddhartha “remembered all that he had forgotten, all that was divine.” (Pg72) and within a flash from this thought, he collapses at the side of the river from exhaustion. When Siddhartha reached the river to end his life, the river ended up saving his life. Because of the natural divinity and Om of the river, hearing and seeing the river saved Siddhartha’s life, thus indicated towards the cycle of life.
After waking up by the river, hungry, Siddhartha goes to look for food. He then comes across the ferryman who is Vasudeva. He gets him a meal, then invites him to come to be his apprentice and work with him on the path to enlightenment. They learn new things everyday then at one point, siddartha says to Vasudeva “
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