The Blind Men and the Elephant
(A Buddhist Parable. Source: Internet)
A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living
here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant
dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it
is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and
others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say
concerning them?"
The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to
his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place
all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very
good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the
blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented
the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the
trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that
was the elephant.
"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and
said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort
of thing is an elephant?' "
"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant
is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is
like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a
ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the
body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle,
the tuft of the tail, a brush."
"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An
elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows
over the matter."
"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene."
"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and
unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and
disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."
Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift:
Oh how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.