the parable of the arrow (or 'parable of the poisoned arrow') is a buddhist parable that illustrates the skeptic 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.