(Kama being the god of love and the senses) and who becomes his teacher in the sexual arts, introducing him to worldly desire and its fulfillment, not unlike the twin figures Hermine and Maria in the later Steppenwolf. Her death at the river in her search for salvation (her desire to reach the Buddha) again portrays the dialectic of samsara and nirvana—sense and spirit—that pervades the book.
