Once upon a time, in the days of the Supreme Buddha Kassapa, there reigned a king named Usinara. It was a long time after the Supreme Buddha Kassapa had declared the Four Truths, and liberated multitudes of people from bondage, and had been translated to swell the number of those who dwell in Nirvana; and the religion had fallen into decay. The Brethren gained their livelihood in the twenty-one unlawful ways ; they associated with the Sisters, and sons and daughters were born to them; Brethren forsook the duties of the Brotherhood, and Sisters forsook the duties of Sisters, lay Brethren and Sisters the duties of such, brahmins did no longer the duties of a brahmin: men for the most part followed the ten paths of evil-doing, and as they died thus filled the hosts of all states of suffering.

Then Sakka, observing that no new deities came into being, looked abroad upon the world; and then he perceived how men were born into states of suffering, and that the religion of the Buddha had decayed. "What shall I do, now?" he wondered.--"Ah, I have it!" thought he: "I will scare and terrify mankind; and when I see they are terrified,