The Blind Men & The Elephant

Perspective & The Whole Picture
Growing up in India, a very complex, multifaceted culture, I remember reciting a poem about 6 blind men and an elephant. In 2nd grade (or so) our teacher would split us up in groups to enact famous poems, including one about the blind men who went to study an elephant (I got to play one of the “blind men”). 

On many occasions as an adult I have racked my brain for the words to this poem. Memory being what it is (mostly just complicated by experiences and urgencies that push old stuff back to make room for what we need to remember for every day life), my strenuous efforts to recall what I had memorized in second grade yielded no results.

I was so delighted when the wonders of the internet reunited me with these long lost words!

Dr. Sunaina Rao Jain
Child & Adolescent Clinical Psychologist
Founder, CEO
Pathways Transition Programs

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he,
“'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
​
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

​MORAL~
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

​by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)