Blind men and an elephant

Uncommon card · No. 80051

The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the animal's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. Only in a handful of versions do the men find out the truth. Regardless, the moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true. The parable originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely disseminated. This parable is found in the most ancient Jain agams before 5th century BCE...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Illustrator unknown, Public domain