The parable of the arrow (or 'Parable of the poisoned arrow') is a Buddhist parable that illustrates the

skeptic Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the ...

and pragmatic themes of the ''Cūḷamālukya Sutta'' (The Shorter Instructions to Mālukya) which is part of the middle length discourses ( Majjhima Nikaya), one of the five sections of the Sutta Pitaka. The Pāli text contains a number of '' hapax legomena'' or otherwise obscure archery terms and these are generally poorly dealt with in English translations.

Narrative

The sutta begins at

Jetavana Jetavana (Jethawanaramaya or Weluwanaramaya ''buddhist literature'') was one of the most famous of the Buddhist monasteries or viharas in India (present-day Uttar Pradesh). It was the second vihara donated to Gautama Buddha after the Venuvan ...

where the monk Malunkyaputta is troubled by

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

's silence on the fourteen unanswerable questions, which include queries about the nature of the cosmos and life after the death of a Buddha. Malunkyaputta then meets with Gautama Buddha and asks him for the answers to these questions, he says that if he fails to respond, Malunkya will renounce his teachings. Gautama responds by first stating that he never promised to reveal ultimate

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

truths such as those and then uses the story of a man who has been shot with a

poisoned arrow Arrow poisons are used to poison arrow heads or darts for the purposes of hunting and warfare. They have been used by indigenous peoples worldwide and are still in use in areas of South America, Africa and Asia. Notable examples are the poisons se ...

to illustrate that those questions are irrelevant to his teachings.

Commentary

Thích Nhất Hạnh Thích Nhất Hạnh ( ; ; born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo; 11 October 1926 – 22 January 2022) was a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet and teacher, who founded the Plum Village Tradition, historically recogni ...

comments on the way the parable of the poisoned arrow illustrates Gautama Buddha's anti-metaphysical views: Sangharakshita notes that "The important thing is to get rid of the arrow, not to enquire where it came from." The parable is considered a teaching on being practical and dealing with the situation at hand.

Chinese sources

The story is also preserved in two Chinese translations of Prakrit sources. * 箭喻經 ''Jiàn yù jīng'' (''Arrow Metaphor Sūtra''), T 1.26 (p0804a21), （二二一）中阿含例品 (Èr èr yī) Zhōng ā hán, Lì pǐn. Madhyāgama 221, Chapter on Examples. Translated from an Indic language (possibly Gāndārī) into Chinese by a Sarvāstivāda Tripiṭaka master, Gautama Saṅghadeva, from Kashmir in the Eastern Jin Dynasty ca. Dec 397 – Jan 398 CE. * 佛說箭喻經 ''Fú shuō jiàn yù jīng''''The Buddha’s Talk on the Arrow Metaphor Sūtra'') T 1.94 (p.0917c21). Translator unknown, dated only to the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420 CE) Each of these uses different translation strategies. T 1.26 transposes the various archery terms into items and materials familiar to a Chinese audience; while T 1.94 uses transliterated Indic terms that do not match the Pāli in most cases. Thus the obscure Pāli terms remain largely obscure for now. A third Chinese text, '' Mahāprajñāpāramitāupadeśa'' (T 1509 at T XXV 170a8-b1) contains a paraphrase of this text.

References

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External links

Parable at Buddhanet
Majjhima Nikaya Parables Buddhist philosophy Theravada Buddhist texts Pali Buddhist texts