Kamala's Death and the Arrival of Siddhartha's Son

Kamala's death and the arrival of her son at the river ferry mark the most decisive turning point in Siddhartha's later life, forcing him out of the serene companionship he had found with Vasudeva and into the raw, painful experience of paternal love. After years of retirement from her former life, Kamala had given her pleasure-garden to the monks of Gotama as a gift, taken refuge in the teachings, and become a friend and benefactor of pilgrims. When news spread that the exalted Buddha was mortally ill and nearing his final death, she set out on foot in simple clothes, accompanied by her young son, to see the perfected one before he became one with salvation. The boy, accustomed to having his way, soon grew tired, desired to go home, to rest, to eat, and became disobedient and whining; he could not comprehend why he had to undertake this exhausting and sad pilgrimage to a stranger who was holy and about to die. As the pilgrims neared Vasudeva's ferry, the boy once again forced his mother to rest. Kamala herself had grown tired, and while the boy chewed a banana, she crouched on the ground and closed her eyes. Suddenly she uttered a wailing scream; a small black snake fled from under her dress, having bitten her. Hurriedly they ran toward the ferry, where Kamala collapsed, unable to go further. The boy cried miserably, kissing and hugging his mother, and she joined his loud screams for help until the sound reached Vasudeva at the ferry. He quickly came, carried the woman into the boat, and the boy ran along; soon they all reached the hut where Siddhartha stood by the stove lighting the fire.

The Recognition and the Wound

Siddhartha looked up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded him of something, like a warning to remember something he had forgotten. Then he saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognized though she lay unconscious in the ferryman's arms, and he knew that it was his own son whose face had been that warning reminder; his heart stirred in his chest. Kamala's wound was washed, but it had already turned black and her body was swollen; she was made to drink a healing potion. Her consciousness returned, and she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut with him bent over her, the man she had once loved so much. It seemed like a dream to her; with a smile she looked at his face, slowly realized her situation, remembered the bite, and called timidly for the boy. "He's with you, don't worry," Siddhartha said. Kamala looked into his eyes and spoke with a heavy tongue, paralyzed by the poison: "You've become old, my dear, you've become gray. But you are like the young Samana who at one time came without clothes, with dusty feet, to me into the garden. You are much more like him than you were at that time when you had left me and Kamaswami. In the eyes, you're like him, Siddhartha." She pointed to the boy and said, "Did you recognize him as well? He is your son." Her eyes became confused and fell shut. The boy wept; Siddhartha took him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair, and at the sight of the child's face a Brahman prayer came to his mind from his own childhood. Slowly, with a singing voice, he began to speak, and the words flowed from his past; the boy became calm, uttered only an occasional sob, and fell asleep. Siddhartha placed him on Vasudeva's bed. Vasudeva stood by the stove cooking rice; Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with a smile. "She'll die," Siddhartha said quietly. Vasudeva nodded; over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's fire.

The Final Conversation and Death

Once again Kamala returned to consciousness. Pain distorted her face; Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth and pale cheeks. Quietly he read it, attentively, waiting, his mind becoming one with her suffering. Kamala felt this and her gaze sought his eyes. Looking at him, she said, "Now I see that your eyes have changed as well. They've become completely different. By what do I still recognize that you're Siddhartha? It's you, and it's not you." Siddhartha said nothing; quietly his eyes looked at hers. "You have achieved it?" she asked. "You have found peace?" He smiled and placed his hand on hers. "I'm seeing it," she said. "I too will find peace." "You have found it," Siddhartha whispered. Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes. She thought of her pilgrimage to Gotama, which she had wanted to take in order to see the face of the perfected one and breathe his peace, and she thought that she had now found him in Siddhartha's place, and that it was good, just as good, as if she had seen the other one. She wanted to tell him this, but her tongue no longer obeyed her will. Without speaking, she looked at him, and he saw the life fading from her eyes. When the final pain filled her eyes and made them grow dim, when the final shiver ran through her limbs, his finger closed her eyelids.

Aftermath and the Beginning of Fatherhood

For a long time Siddhartha sat looking at her peacefully dead face. He observed her mouth, her old, tired mouth with lips that had become thin, and remembered that in the spring of his years he had compared this mouth to a freshly cracked fig. He read in the pale face and tired wrinkles, filled himself with this sight, saw his own face lying in the same manner—white, quenched out—and saw at the same time his face and hers being young, with red lips and fiery eyes. The feeling of both being present and real at once, the feeling of eternity, completely filled his being. Deeply he felt, more deeply than ever before, the indestructibility of every life, the eternity of every moment. When he rose, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him, but Siddhartha did not eat. The two old men prepared beds of straw in the stable where their goat stood, and Vasudeva lay down to sleep. But Siddhartha went outside and sat before the hut that night, listening to the river, surrounded by the past, touched and encircled by all times of his life at once. Occasionally he rose, stepped to the door of the hut, and listened to see whether the boy was sleeping. Early in the morning, before the sun could be seen, Vasudeva came out of the stable and walked over to his friend. "You haven't slept," he said. "No, Vasudeva. I sat here, I was listening to the river. A lot it has told me, deeply it has filled me with the healing thought, with the thought of oneness." "You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see: no sadness has entered your heart." "No, my dear, how should I be sad? I, who have been rich and happy, have become even richer and happier now. My son has been given to me." Vasudeva replied that the son would be welcome to him as well, and then said that Kamala had died on the same bed on which his own wife had died long ago, and that they should build her funeral pile on the same hill. While the boy still slept, they built the funeral pile.

The Significance of the Event

Kamala's death and the arrival of her son accomplish what no teaching, no ascetic practice, and no worldly experience had done: they introduce Siddhartha to the blind, suffering, and blissful love of a parent for a child. Kamala herself had once told him, "You are the best lover I ever saw... and yet, my dear, you've remained a Samana, and yet you do not love me, you love nobody." Siddhartha had agreed, comparing himself to a star and the childlike people to falling leaves. Now, with his son in the hut, he becomes completely a childlike person himself, suffering for another, lost to love, having become a fool on account of love. The wound of this love burns in him for a long time, and it is only through this wound that he finally learns to listen to the river's thousand voices and to hear the Om that unites all suffering and all joy. Kamala's final recognition—that Siddhartha's eyes had changed, that he had achieved peace, and that seeing him was as good as seeing the perfected Buddha—confirms that his long journey has reached its goal, even as a new and more difficult journey with his son is about to begin.