[paragraph continues] "When will you do it, O king?" [456] "On the seventh day from this." The story went round the city, "The king is going by a lie to make the senior the junior, and will give the post to the junior: what kind of a thing is a lie? is it blue or yellow or some other colour?" The multitude thought greatly about it. It was a time, they say, when the world told the truth: men did not know what the word "lie" might mean. The priest's son heard the tale and told his father, "Father, they say the king is going by a lie to make you junior and to give our post to my uncle." "My dear, the king will not be able even by a lie to take our post from us: on what day is he going to do it?" "On the seventh day from this, they say." "Let me know when the time comes." On the seventh day a great multitude gathered in the king's courtyard sitting in rows above rows, hoping to see a lie. The young priest went and told his father. The king was ready in full dress, he appeared and stood in the air in the courtyard amid the multitude The ascetic came through the air, spread his skin-seat before the king, sat on his throne in the air and said, "Is it true, O king, that you wish by a lie to make the junior senior and to give him the post?" "Master, I have done so." Then he admonished the king, "O great king, a lie is a grievous destruction of good qualities, it causes rebirth in the four evil states; a king who makes a lie destroys right, and by destroying right he is himself destroyed:" and he spoke the first stanza:--

Injured Right can injure sorely, and requite with injury;
Therefore Right should ne'er be injured, lest the harm recoil on thee

[457] Admonishing him farther he said, "Great king, if you make a lie, your four supernatural powers will disappear," and he spoke the second stanza:--

The powers divine forsake and leave the man who tells a lie,
Ill smells his mouth, he cannot keep his foothold in the sky:
Whoe'er to questioning replies with falsehood wilfully.

Hearing this, the king in fear looked to Korakalambaka. He said, "Be not afraid, O king; did I not tell you so from the first?" and so forth. The king, though he heard Kapila's words, still put forward his statement, "Sir, you are the younger, Korakalambaka is the elder." At the moment when he uttered this lie, the four angels said they would guard such a liar no longer, threw their swords at his feet and disappeared; his mouth was fetid like a broken rotten egg and his body like an open drain; and falling from the air he lighted on the earth: so all his four supernatural powers disappeared. His chief priest said, "Great king, be not afraid: if you will speak the truth, I will restore you everything," and so he spoke the third stanza:--