I + 

One day, when the three good sages⁠—Ulaya, Darnu, and Purana⁠—were sitting at the door of their common home, young Kassapa, the son of the Rajah Lichava, came up to them and sat down on the earth which was piled around the house but he did not speak. The young man’s cheeks were pale and his eyes, which had lost the glow of youth, seemed weary. + 

The old men looked one at another, and good Ulaya said: + 

“Listen, Kassapa, tell to us, the three sages, who wish you nothing but good, what is oppressing your soul. Ever since you lay in the cradle, fate has showered its gifts upon you and you look as downcast as the meanest slave of your father, poor Jebaka, who yesterday felt the heavy hand of your steward.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes, poor Jebaka showed us the welts on his back,” said stern Darnu and kindly Purana added: + 

“We wished to call them to your attention, good Kassapa.” + 

The young man did not allow him to finish. He jumped up from his seat and exclaimed with an impatience which he had never before displayed: + 

“Stop, kindly sages, with your sly reproaches! You seem to think that I must give you account for every welt inflicted by the steward on the back of the slave Jebaka. I greatly doubt whether I am bound to give account even of my own acts.” + 

The sages glanced again one at another and Ulaya said: + 

“Continue, my son, if you so desire.” + 

“Desire?” interrupted the young man with a bitter laugh. “The fact is, I don’t know whether I desire anything or not. And whether I like what I wish or what another wishes for me.” + 

He stopped. It was almost perfectly quiet but a breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and a leaf fell at the feet of Purana. While the sad gaze of Kassapa was directed upon this, a stone broke off from the heated cliff and rolled down to the bank of a brook, where a large lizard was resting at this moment.⁠ ⁠… Every day at the same hour it crawled to this spot. Straightening its front legs and closing its protruding eyes, it apparently listened to the discourse of the sages. It was easy to imagine that its green body contained the soul of some wise Brahmin. But this day that stone released this soul from its green envelope, so that it might enter upon new transformations.⁠ ⁠… + 

A bitter smile spread over Kassapa’s face. + 

“Come now, ye kindly sages,” he said, “ask this leaf, if it wished to fall from the tree, or the stone, if it wished to break off from the cliff, or the lizard, if it wished to be crushed by the stone. The hour came, the leaf fell, the lizard heard the last of your conversations. For all that we know could not be otherwise. Or do ye say that it should and could have been otherwise than it was?” + 

“It could not,” answered the sages. “What has been had to be in the great chain of events.” + 

“Ye have spoken. Therefore, the welts on the back of Jebaka had to be in the great chain of events, and every one of them has been written since eternity in the book of necessity. And you wish me, the same kind of a stone, the same kind of a lizard, the same kind of a leaf on the great tree of life, the same kind of an insignificant stream as this brook which is driven by an unknown power from source to mouth.⁠ ⁠… You wish me to struggle against the current which is carrying me onward.⁠ ⁠…” + 

He kicked the bloody stone which fell into the water and he again sank back on the earth beside the good sages. The eyes of Kassapa again became dull and sad. + 

Old Darnu said nothing; old Purana shook his head; but the cheerful Ulaya merely laughed and said: + 

“In the book of necessity, it is also manifestly written, Kassapa, that I should tell to you what happened once to the two sages, Darnu and Purana, whom you see before you.⁠ ⁠… And in the same book it is written that you shall listen to the tale.” + 

Then he told the following strange story about his companions and they listened smilingly, but neither confirmed or denied a word. + 