The Coffeehouse of Surat (Tolstoy)
Short summary
In a coffeehouse in Surat, India, travelers from different lands gathered and conversed. A Persian theologian who had lost his faith through excessive study entered with his African slave. The theologian asked his slave about God's existence. The slave showed a wooden idol he carried, declaring it his protector.
This sparked a heated debate among the coffeehouse guests. A Brahmin claimed only Brahma was the true God. A Jewish broker insisted God protected only the Israelites. An Italian missionary argued for Catholic salvation, while a Protestant minister proclaimed Gospel truth. A Turkish official declared Mohammed's faith supreme. Soon representatives of various faiths argued loudly about the nature of God.
Only a Chinese student sat quietly drinking tea.
When asked his opinion, he told a parable about a blind man who denied the sun's existence and various people who each believed the sun shone only for their land. He explained that pride prevents religious agreement.
Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to unite all men in one faith and one religion? All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which is God's own world.
He concluded that those who see God's light should not despise others who see only one ray or none at all. After his words, all fell silent and disputed no more.
Detailed summary
Division into sections is editorial.
The coffeehouse gathering and religious debate
In the Indian town of Surat, a coffeehouse served as a meeting place for travelers and foreigners from around the world. One day, a learned Persian theologian visited this establishment.
He had thought, read, and written so much about God, that eventually he lost his wits, became quite confused, and ceased even to believe in the existence of a God.
The Shah had banished him from Persia for his loss of faith. His African slave waited outside in the sun while the theologian settled inside and ordered opium. After drinking it, he asked his slave whether God existed.
The slave replied that there was indeed a God and showed a wooden idol he kept under his girdle, carved from a fetish tree that his people worshipped. This conversation astonished the other guests in the coffeehouse. A Brahmin overheard and criticized the slave's belief.
He declared that Brahma was the one true God who created the world, and only Brahmins truly knew and worshipped him in temples along the Ganges. A Jewish broker disagreed, insisting that the true God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who protected only the chosen people of Israel.
The Chinamans parable of the blind man and the sun
An Italian missionary interrupted, claiming that salvation could only be found in the Catholic Church of Rome. A Protestant minister grew pale and argued that only those serving God according to the Gospel would be saved. A Turkish official then proclaimed that Mohammed was God's latest prophet and that only his followers would find salvation.
The dispute grew heated as representatives of various faiths - Abyssinian Christians, Tibetan Lamas, Ismailians, and Fire-worshippers - all argued about the true nature of God and proper worship. Each insisted that only in his country was the true God known and rightly worshipped.
Everyone argued and shouted, except a Chinaman, a student of Confucius, who sat quietly in one corner of the coffeehouse, not joining in the dispute.
When the Turkish official appealed to him for support, the Chinese student closed his eyes thoughtfully, then began to speak. He told them that pride prevented men from agreeing on matters of faith and offered to illustrate this with a story from his travels on an English steamer.
Sirs, it seems to me that it is chiefly pride that prevents men agreeing with one another on matters of faith.
The Chinese student recounted how they had landed on Sumatra's east coast, where they encountered a blind man who had lost his sight from staring too long at the sun, trying to understand its nature.
The blind man had concluded through faulty reasoning that since sunlight was neither liquid, fire, spirit, nor matter, it must be nothing at all. His slave, meanwhile, made a simple coconut oil lamp and declared it his sun. Various other men - a lame man, a fisherman, an Indian, and an Egyptian ship master - each offered different explanations of what the sun was and where it traveled. Finally, an intelligent ship's pilot explained the truth.
The moral lesson about religious tolerance and unity
The Chinese student concluded his parable by drawing parallels between different views of the sun and different conceptions of God. He argued that each nation wanted to confine God within its own temples, though the world itself could not contain Him. God's true temple was the world itself, with the ocean as its font, the heavens as its vault, and the sun, moon, and stars as its lamps.
Let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world, refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his own idol sees one ray of that same light.