THE ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN.

Once upon a time, there lived six
blind men in a village. One day
the villagers told them, "Hey,
there is an elephant in the village
today."
They had no idea what an
elephant is. They decided, "Even
though we would not be able to
see it, let us go and feel it
anyway." All of them went where
the elephant was. Everyone of
them touched the elephant.
"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said
the first man who touched his
leg.
"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the
second man who touched the
tail.
"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch
of a tree," said the third man
who touched the trunk of the
elephant.
"It is like a big hand fan" said the
fourth man who touched the ear
of the elephant.
"It is like a huge wall," said the
fifth man who touched the belly
of the elephant.
"It is like a solid pipe," Said the
sixth man who touched the tusk
of the elephant.
They began to argue about the
elephant and everyone of them
insisted that he was right. It
looked like they were getting
agitated. A wise man was
passing by and he saw this. He
stopped and asked them, "What
is the matter?" They said, "We
cannot agree to what the
elephant is like." Each one of
them told what he thought the
elephant was like. The wise man
calmly explained to them, "All of
you are right. The reason every
one of you is telling it differently
because each one of you
touched the different part of the
elephant. So, actually the elephant
has all those features what you
all said."
"Oh!" everyone said. There was
no more fight. They felt happy
that they were all right.
The moral of the story is that
there may be some truth to what
someone says. Sometimes we
can see that truth and sometimes
not because they may have
different perspective which we
may not agree too. So, rather
than arguing like the blind men,
we should say, "Maybe you have
your reasons." This way we don’t
get in arguments. In Jainism, it is
explained that truth can be
stated in seven different ways.
So, you can see how broad our
religion is. It teaches us to be
tolerant towards others for their
viewpoints. This allows us to live
in harmony with the people of
different thinking. This is known
as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or
the theory of Manifold
Predictions
.