The tall blind man touched the elephant's ear. "No, the elephant is obviously a big cattail leaf fan!" He shouted. "You talk nonsense, the elephant is just a big pillar." It turned out that the short blind man touched the elephant's leg.
On the other hand, the old blind man muttered, "Alas, elephants are not that big. It's just a straw rope. " It turned out that he touched the elephant's tail.
Four blind men argued endlessly that they were touching a real elephant. But in fact? None of them are right. Later, I used the metaphor of "the blind touch the elephant" to look at the problem in a partial way.
Touching the elephant by the blind is an idiom in China, and the pinyin is Má ng Ré n M not xià ng, which is a derogatory term. To make a metaphor, we always look at problems with points instead of faces, with partiality. The object of irony in fables is short-sighted people. Excerpted from Dragon Agama, Volume 19.
Extended data:
I. Relevant sources
A long time ago, there was a wise king named "Mirror". In his country, except him, all his subjects believe in the truth of Buddhism, as if they doubt the light of the sun and the moon, but believe in the faint light of fireflies.
Therefore, the king often feels very depressed. He thought, "I must find a way to educate them, so that they can put aside evil spirits and turn over a new leaf!" " "
One day, the king suddenly called his servant and said, "Go and get all the people who were born blind in the countryside!" " "So these courtiers were ordered to search all over the country separately. After a few days, they all came back with the blind people they found.
Jing James Wang said quietly, "Great, you can give another elephant to those blind people!" " "Many subjects were very surprised when they heard the news. They didn't know what the king was going to do today, so everyone went to visit.
King Jing secretly rejoiced: "Great, today is an opportunity to educate them." So he asked the blind to touch the elephant's body: some touched the elephant's feet, some touched the elephant's tail, and some touched the elephant's head.
The king asked them, "Have you seen an elephant?" The blind man insisted, "We all saw it!" The king asked again, "What do you see?"
The blind man touched the elephant's foot and said, "King! Like a paint bucket. " He touched the elephant's tail and said, "No, like a broom!" " "He touched the elephant's belly and said," Like a drum! He touched the elephant's back and said, "You are all wrong! Like a tall coffee table! "
The blind man touched the elephant's ear and argued, "It's like a dustpan." He touched the elephant's head and said, "Who said it was like a dustpan? Obviously like a basket! " The blind man touched the ivory and said, "King! As sharp as reality and horn. "
Because they have never seen an elephant, it is no wonder that what they touch and think is wrong. But they still held their own words and argued endlessly in front of the king.
So the mirror king laughed and said, "blind man, blind man!" " Why argue about right and wrong? Do you think you are right after reading only a little? Alas! You have never seen the whole body of an elephant. You think you have got the whole picture of an elephant, just as people who have never heard of Buddhism think they have got the truth. "
Then the king asked the average tourist, "My subjects! What is the difference between believing in trivial and shallow evil theories and not studying the actual and overall truth of Buddhism and those blind people touching elephants? "
Since then, all the subjects in the country have done everything except evil, reformed in succession, and all of them are devout Buddhists!
Second, idiom analysis
Interpretation: It is a metaphor for guessing at random, trying to make a comprehensive judgment only based on one-sided understanding or partial experience.
From: Nirvana Sutra 32: "Those who touch their teeth are like reed roots, those who touch their ears are like dustpans, those who touch their noses are like stones, those who touch their feet are like pestles, those who touch their feet are like wooden mortars, those who touch their ridges are like beds, those who touch their bellies are like altars, and those who touch their tails are like jars."
Vernacular: "when you touch your teeth, it looks like a reed root;" When it touches the abdomen, it looks like a dustpan; It looks like a pestle when it touches the nose; When it touches the foot, it looks like a wooden mortar; When it touches the spine, it looks like a bed; When it hits the abdomen, it looks like an urn; When it hits its tail, it looks like a rope. "
Grammar: subject-predicate type; As an object, attribute and clause; derogatory sense
Synonyms are six gods without a master, blind people telling images and sitting in a well watching the sky.
The antonym sees everything, is carefree, and looks up.
References:
Baidu encyclopedia-the blind touch the elephant