Tittha Sutta is a Buddhist scripture in

Udāna The Udāna is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. It is included in the Sutta Pitaka's Khuddaka Nikaya. The title might be translated "inspired utterances". The book comprises 80 such utterances, most in verse, ea ...

, the third book in the fifth

collection Collection or Collections may refer to: Computing * Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science * Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing * Garbage collection (computing), autom ...

Sutta Pitaka Sutta may refer to: *The Pali version of the Sanskrit term Sutra **In Buddhism, a discourse of the Buddha: see Sutra ''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indi ...

, known as

Khuddaka Nikāya The ''Khuddaka Nikāya'' () is the last of the five Nikāyas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. This nikaya consists of fifte ...

. Udana is one of the oldest texts in the

Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...

Theravāda Buddhism ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...

. Tittha Sutta contains a famous parable that has spread widely in the world, also to other cultures and views, the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Division and structure

'' Udāna'' consists of eight chapters ('' cradle '') with ten conversations or sutras each, ie. 80 calls. Each sutra consists of a long story or parable and a short concluding udāna, or exclamation, from the Buddha. about "The chapter on being blind from birth". The sutras have the following order: I. ''Āyusama-osajjana Sutta'' II. ''Paṭisalla Sutta'' III. "Ahu Sutta" IV. "'Tittha Sutta' ' V. ''Tittha Sutta'' WE. "'Tittha Sutta' ' VII. ''Subhūti Sutta'' VIII. ''Gaṇika Sutta'' IX. ''Adhipataka Sutta / Upāti Sutta'' X. ''Uppajjanti Sutta'' Tittha Suttha comprises three of these sutras, where the parable of the monks and the elephant is found in the first, viz. sutra number 4. The parable is usually referred to as "The story of the blind men and the elephant".

The parable of the Buddha

The scripture is about some monks (

Bhikkhu A ''bhikkhu'' (, ) is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male, and female monastics (''bhikkhunī''), are members of the Sangha (Buddhist community). The lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the pratimok� ...

s) who hear some ascetic Hindus in lively argumentation about whether the world is eternal or not, infinite or not, whether the soul is separate from the body or not. They then consulted

The Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

who taught them the parable of the blind men and the elephant: A king has taken an elephant to his palace and asks the city's blind men to examine it. When the men felt each part of the elephant, the king asked them, each one, to describe what an elephant is. One man has felt the elephant's head and describes it as a pot, another has felt it on the ear and describes it as a basket or a sieve. Someone has felt the pastures and describes a plow beetle and someone has felt the legs and talks about tree trunks. They have all experienced the elephant in different ways and can not agree on what an elephant is. Their conclusions are completely different and they end up in a heated dispute. The moral of the matter is that it is a waste of time and energy to determine what it is you are experiencing, as this will necessarily be different.

Canki Sutta

The Buddha used the parable of the blind men in error twice. The parable in Tittha Sutta is the older of the two famous texts. The Buddha also used the parable in '' Canki Sutta'', which is part of ''

Majjhima Nikāya The ''Majjhima Nikāya'' ("Collection of Middle-length Discourses") is a Buddhist scripture collection, the second of the five Nikāyas, or collections, in the Sutta Piṭaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipita ...

'' which is the second ''

Nikāya ''Nikāya'' () is a Pāli word meaning "volume". It is often used like the Sanskrit word '' āgama'' () to mean "collection", "assemblage", "class" or "group" in both Pāḷi and Sanskrit. It is most commonly used in reference to the Pali Buddhis ...

'', or the collection in Sutta-Pitaka. Canki Sutta is included in the middle part of nikayan,'' Majjhimapaṇṇāsapāḷi'', in the chapter'' Brāhmaṇa Vagga'', where it is sutta number 95.

Modern use of the parable

The parable has spread widely in the world, also to other cultures and views. It is therefore not always known when it is told what its origin is - in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. It is therefore occasionally attributed to both Christian sources and the American poet John Godfrey Saxe.

Notes

External links