Hesse’s great image, in which the whole meaning of the novel is contained, is the river. Siddhartha is reborn as he sleeps by the river’s edge, and he resolves to stay there and learn from it. Vasudeva has spent a lifetime ferrying travelers across the river (in Buddhist thought, enlightenment is said to be the knowledge which goes “to the other shore,” and the sage is the one who steers the boat). The river symbolizes life. It is from the river that Siddhartha learns that time has no existence. The river is everywhere at the same time; it flows on forever and has neither past nor future. Siddhartha realizes that this quality is also true of human life and that suffering takes place only within that false mental construct which is called time, yet which has no reality.