In the Jain version of this parable, a king asks six blind men to determine how an elephant looks, by touching it. With such an attitude, one might miss the whole truth. “O how they cling and wrangle, some who claimįor, quarreling, each to his view they cling.īuddha believed that clinging to one’s view of things is not right. A verse from the scripture summarizes the nature of such men. According to Buddha, these preachers and followers stick to their narrow views and that makes them disagree any other views. Gautama Buddha uses this story in his scripture Udana, to point to the ignorance of religious preachers and followers. To the king’s surprise, the blind men cannot agree with each others’ interpretations of the elephant. Each blind man, after touching different parts of the elephant, describes it as a plow, a granary, a winnowing basket, etc. In BuddhismĪ Buddhist version of the parable describes blind men invited by a king to his palace to describe an elephant. He should be open to other points of view. A 19th century Indian saint Ramkrishna Paramhamsa has used this tale to oppose dogmatism in religion saying, “He who has seen the Lord in a particular way limits the Lord to that alone and thinks that He is nothing else.” He believed that a person shouldn’t stick to only his knowledge and turn away if anyone challenges it. In Hinduism, the tale explains how on touching, seeing, or experiencing a part of the whole, we tend to limit ourselves to only that part, leading us to consider it as the whole. The story is a part of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sufi cultures. This parable has been adopted by various religions. People form opinions based on incomplete knowledge. This is to say that people believe something to be true, based on their personal experiences, and seldom go on to see the complete picture before coming to a conclusion. They based their opinion of how an elephant is, on their knowledge of the animal, which wasn’t complete. In the story, each blind man touched only a part of the elephant, and believed it to be the whole elephant. At the end of the story, a sighted man (in some versions, a king) explains to the blind men what the elephant is really like and resolves the argument. In different versions, the number of men vary and there are slight variations in what they think about the elephant. In some versions of the story, the argument is never resolved. They argue over what the elephant is like, based on their experience of the animal. The other blind men touch the tusk, trunk, ear, and tail and believe that the elephant is like a spear, snake, fan, and rope respectively. Another blind man touches its leg and exclaims that the elephant is like a tree. One blind man touches the elephant’s side and claims that the elephant is like a wall. Not knowing what an elephant is like, each of them comes to a different conclusion based on his own experience. Each of them touch different parts of the elephant. The StoryĪ group of blind men encounter an elephant for the first time. Later, it became a part of the lore of many different cultures, each interpreting the story in its own way. One such famous parable or moral story is The Blind Men and an Elephant, which is believed to have originated in India. However, the basic theme and the message they carry is the same. Their versions vary across cultures, with slight changes in the characters and other details. Since childhood, we have heard several parables like The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, among others, that taught us important lessons.
Natalie Merchant sang this poem in her album Leave Your Sleep. The story of the blind men and an elephant became famous when John Godfrey Saxe, an American poet wrote The Blind Men and the Elephant. Here, we give you its interpretations in different religions.
While it entertains us, it also teaches us an important lesson of life. Blind Men and the Elephant is an interesting story that originated in India in the 18th century.