这个故事出自十三世纪波斯诗人鲁米（1207—1273）用波斯文写成的长诗《玛斯纳维》，在第三卷约第1259行起，题为《黑暗屋子里的大象》。鲁米晚年住在今天土耳其的孔亚，这部六卷长诗由他口述、弟子胡萨姆丁记录完成。

This story comes from the Masnavi, a long Persian poem by the 13th-century poet Rumi (1207–1273). It appears in Book Three, beginning around line 1259, under the title The Elephant in the Dark House. Rumi spent his later years in Konya, in present-day Türkiye, and dictated the six-book poem to his disciple Husam al-Din, who wrote it down.

鲁米并不是第一个讲这个故事的人：巴利文佛经《自说经》里就有一群盲人摸象，波斯诗人萨纳伊（约卒于1131年）也讲过相近的故事。中文成语「盲人摸象」出自《大般涅槃经》卷三十二。有趣的是，鲁米的版本里没有盲人——大家都看得见，只是屋子太黑。

Rumi was not the first to tell it. The Pali Buddhist scripture Udana already has a group of blind men feeling an elephant, and the Persian poet Sanai (died around 1131) told a similar tale. The Chinese idiom mang ren mo xiang, blind men feeling an elephant, comes from Volume 32 of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Interestingly, in the version by Rumi there are no blind men: everyone can see, but the room is simply too dark.

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