The Blind Men and the Elephant

Long ago, the Buddha was staying near the city of Savatthi, in a garden called the Jetavana. At that time, a great many teachers and wandering holy men from all sorts of different groups had come to Savatthi to beg for food. They held all kinds of different beliefs, and they argued about everything.

Some said the world would last forever. Others said it would not. Some said the world went on without end. Others said it had an edge. They argued about the soul and the body, and about what happens after death. And every one of them said, “My idea is true, and everyone else’s is wrong.” They quarrelled so fiercely that their sharp words hurt one another like spears.

Some of the Buddha’s monks saw all this while they were in the city collecting food. When they came back and had eaten their meal, they went to the Buddha, greeted him and sat down. “Master,” they said, “there are teachers of every kind in Savatthi, and they are all arguing. Each one says, ‘This is the truth, and that is not the truth.'”

“Those teachers are blind,” said the Buddha. “They cannot see what is right or what is wrong, what is true or what is false. And because they cannot see, they argue. Let me tell you a story.

“Long ago there was a king here in Savatthi. One day the king called a man to him and said, ‘Go and gather together all the people in Savatthi who were born blind, and bring them here.’

“‘Yes, my lord,’ said the man, and he went through the city and brought all the people who had been blind since birth to the king. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘here are all the people in Savatthi who were born blind.’

“‘Now bring an elephant and show it to them,’ said the king.

“‘Yes, my lord,’ said the man. He brought an elephant to the blind men and said, ‘Here, blind men, is an elephant.’

“To some of them he showed the elephant’s head and said, ‘This is an elephant.’ To some he showed the ears, to some the tusks, and to some the trunk. To others he showed the body, the feet, the back, the tail, or the hairy tuft at the end of the tail. Each time he said, ‘This is an elephant.’

“Then the man went back to the king. ‘My lord, the blind men have met the elephant. Now do as you think best.’

“So the king went to the blind men and asked them, ‘Do you know now what an elephant is like?’

“‘Yes, my lord, we certainly do!’

“‘Then tell me. What is an elephant like?’

“The men who had felt the elephant’s head said, ‘An elephant, sir, is like a big round water jar.’

“Those who had felt its ears said, ‘No, it’s like a flat basket for sifting grain.’

“Those who had felt its tusks said, ‘It’s like the pointed blade of a plough.’

“Those who had felt its trunk said, ‘It’s like the long pole of a plough.’

“Those who had felt its body said, ‘It’s like a big storehouse for grain.’

“Those who had felt its feet said, ‘It’s like a pillar.’

“Those who had felt its back said, ‘It’s like a big bowl for grinding spices.’

“Those who had felt its tail said, ‘It’s like the stick you grind the spices with.’

“And those who had felt the tuft at the end of its tail said, ‘It’s like a broom.’

“Then they all began to quarrel. ‘An elephant is like this!’ ‘No, it isn’t, it’s like that!’ ‘An elephant is not like that at all!’ And soon they were hitting one another with their fists. The king was very amused.

“Those teachers in the city are just like that,” the Buddha told his monks. “They cannot see clearly, so each one argues that his idea is the only true one and every other idea is false. Each has touched only one part, and none of them has seen the whole.”

Where this tale comes from

This is a Buddhist version of a widely retold parable. It comes from the Udana, a collection of the Buddha’s sayings in the Pali language, and this retelling follows the English translation by D. M. Strong, published in 1902. The same story is told by Jain teachers and by Persian poets such as Sanai and Rumi, and the American poet John Godfrey Saxe made it famous in English with his poem of “six men of Indostan.”

In the Buddha’s telling, the story is a warning to people who see only one side of something and then fight about it.

Read the original: D. M. Strong, trans., The Udana, or The Solemn Utterances of the Buddha (1902), Internet Archive

Suggested for ages 6–8 with discussion: a parable about partial information, argument and a king who enjoys other people’s confusion.

The king controls the information

Each person receives a different part and is told it is the elephant. The resulting descriptions contain useful observations; the mistake is treating one observation as the whole. The king encourages the situation and then laughs at it. The tale’s use of blindness as a metaphor should not suggest that blind people cannot reason or learn: anyone can make overconfident judgments from limited information.

Combine the reports

Draw the parts named in the story on separate cards, with everyone able to see their card. Share the descriptions and assemble a whole elephant together. What changes when the participants compare information instead of competing?

Talk about it

• Why did each blind man describe the elephant differently?
• Were any of the blind men completely wrong? Were any completely right?
• Can you think of a time when two people both saw only part of what happened?

More stories like this

• The King’s White Elephant — another Buddhist tale about an elephant
• King Shibi and the Dove — another ancient Indian tale with an important lesson
• The Cat, the Mouse, the Lizard, and the Owl — another Indian fable with a lesson about seeing clearly