Book Tests

Book Test 1 – Siddhartha

(Pre-Writing)

I chose to read the book “Siddhartha” because it came highly recommended from a good friend who said it would speak to me as a person seeking a greater understanding of the world. I found the first part of the book to be interesting and intriguing. The main character, Siddhartha, abandons everything he knows and owns and goes off to live in the woods with a group of people called “Samanas”. He then becomes well versed in meditation and he starves himself and does other things that make him sacrifice comforts of daily life, in order to achieve a higher understanding of the world. What I wanted to know in this project is: “Who are Samanas and do they still exist in modern India?”

(Summary)

The term “Samana” is derived from the Sanscrit word meaning to exert, effort or carry out austerity, according to Indiannetzone.com. This basically means that one who is a practicing Shamana deprives themselves of worldly possessions in their effort to gain enlightenment according to the Buddhist tradition. They are typically referred to as “wandering monks”. The first Samanas that Siddhartha ever sees are characterized in the book “Siddhartha” as “three thin worn-out men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bleeding shoulders, practically scorched by the sun, solitary, strange and hostile – lean jackals in the world of men” (9). In modern times, the Sharmanas or wandering monks, no longer wander, as the tradition died out with time. Instead, those wandering aesthetics began settling down in structures dedicated to the practice of Buddhism, which we now refer to as monasteries. Once called Sharmanas, these dedicated people are now what we call Monks (Sharf).

Works Cited

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. New York: Bantam 1951.

Jupiter Infomedia Pvt. Shramana, Indian Philosophy. 2009. 24 Feb. 2010

<http://www.indianetzone.com/38/shramana.htm&gt;

Sharf, Robert H. “Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience.” Numen 42 (1995): 228-283.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270219&gt;

Here is the properly formatted version.

Book Test 1