In a 1922 letter to Swiss writer Helen Welti on the eve of
Siddhartha’s publication in Germany, Hesse reveals what he had in mind regarding an English
Siddhartha: “I very much hope that
Siddhartha will eventually appear in English, not for the sake of the English themselves, but for those Asians and others whom it would vindicate.”
1Hermann Hesse, Letter to Helen Welti, in Soul of the Age: Selected Letters, 1891–1962, ed. Theodore Ziolkowski, trans. Mark Harman (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991), 118. Although Hesse’s language (“those Asians”) has not dated well, the letter suggests that he was fully aware that an English version would be the master key to providing access to educated readers in India and the East, where the author’s most valued and sought-after audiences for
Siddhartha lived. It is not hard to see why Rosner’s, a version of such clarity and simplicity, served as an ideal vehicular translation. Although this raises all sorts of potential problems and is frowned upon by those oriented toward the integrity of originals, it does seem that it allowed
Siddhartha to be re-expanded in local re-Indianized translations. Although the Kuhn-Gabriel version is lost, its subtitle gives us a clue to its translational strategy.
The Inward Path is a reference to (and a translation of) the title of a later Hesse volume (
Weg nach Innen) that included
Siddhartha. It suggests that Kuhn and Gabriel were familiar with Hesse’s oeuvre, but also that the translators were oriented toward the source text when, in the words of Gabriel, they “worked out” the translation. Would the result have been as popular with young North American readers as Rosner’s was? But more importantly, would it have lent itself so readily to the role of a vehicular version for translations into non-Western languages? It seems plausible that Rosner’s reduction of the story to its basic foundations was an unintended quality allowing
Siddhartha to be rebuilt in the local idioms of cultures “whom it would vindicate.” In his letters of the 1950s Hesse repeatedly remarks with pleasure on the translations into Indian languages that were made possible by the use of Rosner’s
Siddhartha as a source text, and when he did so he put it in terms of
Siddhartha’s return to his homeland.
2Hermann Hesse, Gesammelte Briefe IV: 1949–1962, ed. Ursula and Volker Michels (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 222, 299, 354, 384, 388. In short, it seems likely that Hesse’s special interest in an English version was not motivated by the prospect of success in England or America but by a desire for recognition
from and
for the peoples of India and Asia.
Writing in German, Vridhagiri Ganeshan is one of the few scholars to note and discuss the use of Rosner’s translation as a basis for translations into Indian languages. These include Kannada (1952), Bengali (1954), Hindi (1954), Sindhi (1955), Malayalam (1957), Telugu (1957), and Oriya (1960).
3Vridhagiri Ganeshan, “Indien,” in Hermann Hesses weltweite Wirkung, ed. M. Pfeifer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 214–16. Translator and publisher details for versions into Urdu (1982), Gujarati (1992), Sanskrit (2008), Tamil (2012), and Punjabi (2020) also indicate the use of Rosner’s as a basis for translations into these languages. I have established that this is also the case for translations into Persian (1961),
4I am indebted here to my colleague, translation scholar Samira Saeedi, who was able to check the Persian sources for me and confirm this for at least two translations (personal communication). Thai (1967),
5Jutamanee Tipparach, “An Analysis of Strategies in Translating Philosophical Concepts in Hesse’s Siddhartha” (Master Thesis, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Rachathani University, 2001), abstract. and Chinese (1968).
6Ciyun Lai, “Was Song of the Wanderer translated by Meng Xiangke or Meng Xiangsen?” (Blog Post), The Translation Detective Agency, December 20, 2015, http://www.esanpedia.oar.ubu.ac.th/e-research/?q=node/74. Other likely candidates include Indonesian (1987), Sinhalese (1995) and Nepali (2004). Some of the titles of these editions, when back-translated into English, tell a story of addition, enrichment, and interpretation. From one Thai edition there is
Siddhartha: Important World Literature Incorporating Dharma in Buddhism. From Chinese we find
Song of the Wanderer and Vietnamese readers will know
Siddhartha as
Story of the River. The Hermann Hesse Society of India, a not-for-profit organization founded in 2005, has even made
Siddhartha the centerpiece of its raison d’etre:
An important project the society undertook is preparation of authentic translations of Hesse’s most acclaimed work “Siddhartha” in all Indian languages and also an Indian translation in English by a team consisting of members who translated the work into different languages including Sanskrit. An Advisory cum Editorial Board co-ordinates and authenticates the translation of Hesse’s works in Indian Languages.
7“Hermann Hesse Society of India,” Dharmapedia, accessed October 18, 2022, https://en.dharmapedia.net/wiki/Hermann_Hesse_Society_of_India.This is one of the most powerful dimensions of Rosner’s legacy, and one that she, unlike Hesse, does not seem to have anticipated from the outset. From its immediate popularity in India to its extended career as a basis for further translations, it proved instrumental allowing Hesse’s tribute to the East to reach its audiences there. We should now recognize its role—and the role of Rosner herself—in building multiple bridges for Hesse to move out beyond the confines of Europe.