Once upon a time, in the first age, there was a king named Mahasammata, whose life was an asankheyya long. His son was Roja, his son Vararoja, and then the succession was Kalyana, Varakalyana, Uposatha, Mandhata, Varamandhata, Cara, Upacara, who was also called Apacara. He reigned over the kingdom of Ceti, in the city of Sotthivati; he was endowed with four supernatural faculties--he could walk aloft and pass through the air, he had four angels in each of the four quarters to defend him with drawn swords, he diffused the fragrance of sandalwood from his body, he diffused the fragrance of the lotus from his mouth. His family priest was named Kapila. This brahmin's younger brother, Korakalamba, had been taught along with the king by the same teacher and was the king's playmate. When Apacara was prince, [455] he promised to make Korakalamba his family priest when he became king. At his father's death he became king, but he could not depose Kapila from the position of family priest: and when Kapila came to wait on him, he shewed him special forms of honour. The brahmin observed this and considered that a king manages best with ministers of his own age, and that he himself might get leave from the king to become an ascetic, so he said, "O king, I am getting old; I have a son at home: make him family priest and I will become an ascetic." He got the king's leave and had his son appointed family priest: then he went to the king's park, became an ascetic, reached transcendent knowledge and lived there, near his son. Korakalambaka felt a grudge against his brother because he had not got him his post when he became an ascetic. One day the king said to him in friendly conversation, "Korakalambaka, you are not family priest?" "No, O king: my brother has managed it." "Has not your brother become an ascetic?" "He has, but he got the post for his son." "Then do you manage it." "O king, it is impossible for me to set aside my brother and take a post which has come by descent." "If so, I will make you senior and the other your junior." "How, O king?" "By a lie ." "O king, do you not know that my brother is a magician, endowed with great supernatural power? He will deceive you with magical illusions: he will make your four angels disappear, and make as it were an evil odour come from your body and mouth, he will make you come down from the sky and stand on the ground: you will be as if swallowed up by the earth, and you will not be able to abide by your story." "Do not trouble; I will manage it."