The Dhamma Man

by Vilas Sarang

Siddharth Gautam, prince of Kapilavastu and heir to the throne has everything. Yet he is dissatisfied. The fundamental problem of suffering—dukkha—bothers him. He leaves home. Renouncing crown and family, he becomes a wandering seeker.

Siddharth finds gurus to guide him and practices extreme asceticism—at one point nearly starving himself to death—and then rejects everything. The knowledge he seeks constantly eludes him. He then meditates and one epiphanic night enlightenment comes to him—the startling insight into the human condition which makes him the Buddha.

The Dhamma Man explores, sensitively and with great objectivity, Buddha as man—as son, husband and father. Even as Sarang tries to understand the effect Siddharth’s renunciation of the world had on his family, he celebrates Buddha who not only launched a religion but has continued relevance today, more than two millennia after his death. Richly imagined and refreshingly original; The Dhamma Man is a whole new way to read the story of Buddha.

Genres: Buddhism

171 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2011

About the author

One of the most significant modernist writer in Marathi writer and English, Vilas Sarang has written remarkable short stories, poems, a novel and also brilliant pieces of criticism in his first language Marathi as well as in English. His Marathi short story collections are 'Soledad' (1975) and 'Atank' (1999) and translations of his stories in English are collected in 'A Fair Tree of the Void' (1990) and more recently `The Women in the Cages' (2006). A selection of his short stories also appeared in French translation in 1988. His English novel 'The Dinosaur Ship'(2005) and his Marathi novel is `Enkichya Rajyat'. His Marathi collection of poems is published under the title Kavita 1969-1984 and his collection of English poems is published as 'A Kind of Silence'(1978) and recently he has brought out ` Another Life'. He has also written significant criticism in Marathi 'Sisyphus ani Bolakka' and 'Aksharanchya Shrama Kela'(2000).He has also published The Stylistics of Literary Translation ( 1988 ) and edited the anthology Indian English Poetry Since 1950 ( 1989. He has also edited reputed literary journals like the Bombay Review and The Post Post Review.

He holds a Ph. D. in English from Bombay University and another in comparative literature from Indiana University. He taught at the University of Basra in Iraq during the 1970s, became Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at Bombay University in the eighties, and he has also taught at Kuwait University. He lives in Mumbai

The quest for primitive source of human existence is an important feature of his writings. His short stories are often surreal and have often been compared to Kafka. For instance, in one of his stories collected in The Women in Cages, the narrator finds himself transformed into a gigantic phallus. In another more well known story, a person named Chako is marooned on an island where women have either upper half of their bodies or the lower half. Sarang is awovedly anti-representational modernist in his aesthetics and provides a refreshing alternative to over-hyped `diaspora' and `exiled' non-resident Indian English writers like Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul and Kiran Desai.

Reviews

[Suresh Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is for those who are all interested and eager to know about how Buddhar became a Buddhar. Nice book to read

[Hiren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A refreshing biographical account of Buddha in novel form with shifting objective and subjective narration. Sarang is amazing and original modernist story teller and his eye for critical and contemplative detailing is really interesting one. However, in the later half the book (read Post-enlightenment of Buddha) diverged too historical and speculative. I expect it to be more sarcastic and funny just like his brilliant ‘Rudra: The Untouchable God’ but this altogether is different Sarang, more poise and mellow.

[Gopal MS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Master storyteller.

[Shabana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the writing excellent!The Perspective is quite romanticized but it gave me the brief overall glimpse of the Buddhist religion and Buddha as a person that I was looking for.