Malunkyaputta

“Be a lamp unto yourself,” Buddha told Malunkyaputta, dismissing him. “Go your own way. You are excused.”

The apprentice gurus pelted Malunkyaputta. They flung rotten-ripe figs into the quibbler's face. They tossed banana peels on his head. They threw cow dung on his white dhoti. They chased him from the deer park. Then they danced back to their master in the shade of the bodhi tree to resume their study of the right way to Enlightenment.

Malunkyaputta shook the cow dung from his tunic. He wiped the dirt from his head and face. Fixing his eyes on the invisible stars, he silently affirmed his secret aspirations. “I will find new wisdom,” he told himself, “fresh as the world's first dawn, sharp as a thorn, true and enduring as the stars. I will discover new beauty to match the spring. I will invent a new poem, sweet as wild honey, strong as a lion's heart. And I will win the world's esteem…”

So Malunkyaputta embarked on his quest for edification.