Six blind men and the elephant

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined, who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),…

Many of us may recall the lines from the poem learnt at school. And perhaps most of us, and that includes me, gave the credit for the ‘funny’ story to the English poet Saxe. Thanks to the ocean of information available on the internet, I now know that it is an ancient Indian parable with a universalistic perspective and relevant for all times.

"Reality is one, though wise men speak of it variously," states the Rig Veda. This premise is the foundation of the parable of the blind men and an elephant.

The first version of the story is traceable to the Buddhist scriptural text, Udana in which Buddha uses this tale to explain sectarian disputes. The Buddha compares the blind men to those preachers and scholars who are ignorant towards other’s point of view and hold their own views as the ultimate truth.

In Jainism, this story is used to explain the concept of Anekantavada or many-sidedness of reality and Syadvada. The word Syat means ‘in some respect’. The Jaina philosophers held that reality can be looked at from many different standpoints. There are multiple aspects of truth. Language itself is not the absolute truth, but a way to express the truth.

According to Mallisena a 12th century Jaina Acarya, whenever anyone takes a partial, unconditional view of the ultimate reality, and denies the possibility of another aspect of that reality, it is an instance of the above parable and a defective view.

With the crux of the story remaining the same, there are several versions of the story. In the Persian poet Rumi’s retelling, an elephant is exhibited in a dark room. A number of men feel the elephant in the dark and, depending upon where they touch it, they believe the elephant to be different things. Rumi uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception and ends the poem by stating "If each had a candle and they went in together the differences would disappear.”

The take home from the story for us ordinary mortals is this. There might be some fact to what someone else says. We might not agree with it because we have our own view points based on our preconceptions. But what we think might not also not be the absolute truth.