Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta gained his livelihood as a trader. In those days in a Border village in Kasi there dwelt a number of carpenters. And one of them was a bald grey-haired man. He was planning to make a furniture and then a mosquito settled on his scalp and stung him with its dart–like sting.

The carpenter said to his son, who was seated next to him, -“My boy, there’s a mosquito stinging me on the head; drive it away.”

“Hold still then, father,” said the son; “one blow will settle it.”

At that very time the Bodhisatta had reached that village in the way of trade, and was sitting in the carpenter’s shop.

In order to kill the mosquito, the carpenter’s son, raised a sharp axe and cleft his father’s head in twain. So the old man fell dead on the spot.

The Bodhisatta thought, who had been an eye – witness of the whole scene, “Sense–lacking friends are worse than foes with sense;

Witness the son that sought the gnat to slay,

But cleft, poor fool, his father’s skull in twain.”

So saying, the Bodhisatta rose up and departed, passing away in after days to fare according to his deserts. And as for the carpenter, his body was burned by his kinsfolk.