A Brahmin boy follows his heart and goes through various lives to finally understand what it means to be enlightened. He experiences life as a pious Brahmin, a Samana, a rich merchant, a lover, and an ordinary ferryman, to a father. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river.