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A Treatise on Jainism
a big windpipe. The fourth touched the legs and said it was like a big pillar. The fifth felt the stomach and said it looked like a water-bag. The sixth had a tail in his hand and said it appeared to him like a broom. Each thought that his version was right and others were wrong. The care-taker said that none of them had ever seen the elephant fully. Each one had merely seen one limb and from that data each one had given his surmises about the whole elephant. This was therefore the cause of their quarrel. He explained the whole position and all the blind men became silent and departed.
By these parables, one thing certainly becomes clear that the same thing can be explained from different stand points and any description of a thing would be true from one stand point but from this it cannot mean that the other points of view cannot be right. From the above it follows that to comprehend the real nature of any thing one must pay due regard to all points of view. Viewing things in this light, one will have to admit that everything in this world involves endless points of view and has endless characteristics.
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