[无量香光 · 显密文库 · 手机站]
fowap.goodweb.net.cn
{返回首页}


The Blind Men and the Elephant
 
{返回 A Collection of Buddhist Stories 文集}
{返回网页版}
点击:2062

The Blind Men and the Elephant

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja 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?'

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"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."

Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

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.


{返回 A Collection of Buddhist Stories 文集}
{返回网页版}
{返回首页}

上一篇:The Thief and the Master
下一篇:已经没有了
 Yajnadatta, the Mad Man
 Angulimala
 The Monkey King
 Karma (The Four Wives)
 Easier Known Than Done
 The Story of Upali
 The Sound the Hare Heard
 The Blind Men and the Elephant
 Worse than a clown
 The Human Condition / Stop the Trai..
全文 标题
 
【佛教文章随机阅读】
 现在各地都兴建了很多寺庙,同时也带来了很多烧香观光的居士和游人,出家人的待遇也很有提高。这是不是说明..[栏目:索达吉堪布·问答释疑]
 新译·菩提道次第广论 中册 共中士道 意乐之量[栏目:新译·菩提道次第广论]
 那个境界,我们从来没有经验[栏目:海云继梦法师文集·禅法]
 第二课[栏目:量理宝藏论 第一品 观境]
 杂阿含经卷第三十五(九八二)[栏目:杂阿含经]
 关于禅宗牧牛图的两个问题──从《增一阿含经》〈牧牛品〉说起[栏目:李志夫教授]
 华文小学适用佛学 二下 四 太子出城访问[栏目:华文小学适用佛学课本]
 有佛法就有办法[栏目:真理的价值·迷悟之间]
 福德日记9月5日-真正的保护[栏目:福德日记]
 普贤菩萨行愿赞讲记「善根回向」赞[栏目:普贤菩萨行愿赞讲记]


{返回首页}

△TOP

- 手机版 -
[无量香光·显密文库·佛教文集]
教育、非赢利、公益性的佛教文化传播
白玛若拙佛教文化传播工作室制作
www.goodweb.net.cn Copyrights reserved
(2003-2015)
站长信箱:yjp990@163.com