on 2/18/05 5:41 PM, Chris Gillen at
chrisgillen@optusnet.com.au wrote:
(((( Benchmark, no. Example, maybe.
Respectfully,
Andy
=======================
"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."
