Blind men and an elephant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
"Blind monks examining an elephant", an 1888 ukiyo-e print by Hanabusa Itchō.

The story of the blind men and an elephant originated from India.

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths.

Various versions are similar, and differ primarily in how the elephant's body parts are described, how violent the conflict becomes, and how (or if) the conflict among the men and their perspectives is resolved. For example, in the popular british children's television show Aquila, the professor describes the truth as "an elephant surrounded by blind men".[1]He explains how each man can feel a part of the elephant, and believe that they have the whole of the elephant, however in reality they only have a part of it, and no one can have the whole elephant, just like no one can know the whole truth about matters.

The story has been attributed to the Sufis, Jainists, Buddhists or Hindus, and has been used by all those groups. The version best-known in the West is the 19th Century poem by John Godfrey Saxe. Buddha used the simile of blind men in Tittha sutta in Udana (Pali canon). Buddha used a row of blind men as an example in Canki sutta as well to explain the blind following of a leader or an old text that had come down generation after generation.

Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, amongst others, offered a critique of the story's relativistic message.

Contents

[edit] Jain

A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body.

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

A wise man explains to them:

"All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned."[2]

This resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and that truth can be stated in different ways (in Jainist beliefs often said to be seven versions). This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions.[2]

[edit] Buddhist

The Buddha here tells the story of a king who had six blind men gathered together to examine an elephant.
"When the blind men had each felt a part of the elephant, the king 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

The six blind men assert the elephant is either like a pot (the blind man who felt the elephants' head), wicket basket (ear), ploughshare (tusk), plough (trunk), granary (body), pillar (foot), mortar (back), pestle (tail) or brush (tip of the tail).

The men cannot agree with one another and come to blows over the question of what an elephant really is like, and this delights the king. The Buddha ends the story of the king and compares the six blind men to preachers and scholars who are blind and ignorant and hold to their own views: "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." The Buddha then speaks the following verse:

O 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.[3]

[edit] Muslim - Sufi

Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, popularly known in the English-speaking world as simply Rumi, was a 13th Century Persian poet, jurist, theologian and teacher of Sufism.

Rumi credits the tale to the Hindus in his telling of the story, "The Elephant in the Dark" from Tales from Masnavi. In this version, some Hindus bring an elephant to be exhibited in a dark room.

In a translation by A. J. Arberry, some men feel the elephant in the dark. Depending upon where they touch, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back). Rumi uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception.

The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast.[4]

Rumi doesn't present a resolution to the conflict in his version, but states

The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: of amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.[4]

[edit] John Godfrey Saxe

One of the most famous versions of the 19th Century was the poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887).

The poem begins:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind[5]

They conclude that the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan or rope, depending upon where they touch. They have a heated debate that does not come to physical violence. But in Saxe's version, the conflict is never resolved.

Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen![5]

[edit] Hindu

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used this parable to discourage dogmatism[6] —

"A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: 'It is like a pillar.' This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently. In the same way, he who has seen the Lord in a particular way limits the Lord to that alone and thinks that He is nothing else."


[edit] See also

[edit] Religious

[edit] Other

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquila_(TV_series)
  2. ^ a b "ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN". Jain Stories. JainWorld.com. http://www.jainworld.com/education/stories25.asp. Retrieved on 2006-08-29. 
  3. ^ Wang, Randy. "The Blind Men and the Elephant". http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/258/parable.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-29. 
  4. ^ a b Arberry, A. J. (2004-05-09). "71-The Elephant in the dark, on the reconciliation of contrarieties". Rumi - Tales from Masnavi. http://www.khamush.com/tales_from_masnavi.htm#The%20Elephant. Retrieved on 2006-08-29. 
  5. ^ a b "The Blind Men and the Elephant". The Wondering Minstrels. 2003-02-20. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1179.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-29. 
  6. ^ Gupta, Mahendranath (Sunday, 11 March, 1883.), "Chapter V - Vaishnavism and sectarianism – harmony of religions", Kathamrita, Vol.II 

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Blind men and an elephant
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant"
Personal tools