(An Eastern Tale)

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“NECESSITY”

(AN EASTERN TALE)

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.

II

“In the land,” he said, “where blooms the lotus and the sacred stream flows upon its course,—there were no Brahmins more wise than Darnu and Purana. No one had learned the Shastras better and no one had dipped more deeply into the ancient wisdom of the Vedas. But when both approached the end of the mortal span of life and the storms of approaching winter had touched their hair with snow, both were still dissatisfied. The years were passing, the grave was coming nearer and nearer, and truth seemed to recede further and further....”

Both then, well aware that it was impossible to escape the grave, decided to draw truth nearer to themselves. Darnu was the first to put on a wanderer’s robe, to hang a gourd of water on his belt, to take a staff in his hand and to set out. After two years of difficult traveling, he came to the foot of a lofty mountain and on one of its peaks, at an altitude where the clouds love to pass the night, he saw the ruins of a temple. In a meadow near the road shepherds were watching their flocks, and Darnu asked them what sort of a temple it was, what people had built it, and to what god they had offered sacrifices.

The shepherds merely looked at the mountain and then at Darnu, their questioner, for they did not know what answer to make. Finally they said:

“We inhabitants of the valleys, do not know how to answer you. There is among our number an old shepherd Anuruja, who ages ago used to pasture his flocks on these heights. He may know.”

They called this old man.

“I cannot tell you,” he said, “what people built it, when they did it, and to what god they here sacrificed. But my father heard from his father and told me that my great grandfather had said that there once lived a tribe of sages on the slopes of these mountains and that they have all perished, since they have erected this temple. The name of the deity was ‘Necessity.’”

“Necessity?” exclaimed Darnu, greatly interested. “Don’t you know, good father, what form this deity had and whether or not it still resides in this temple?”

“We are simple people,” answered the old man, “and it is hard for us to answer your wise questions. When I was young,—and that was years and years ago,—I used to pasture my flock on these mountain sides. At that time there stood in the temple an idol wrought out of a gleaming black stone. At rare intervals, when a storm overtook me in the vicinity,—and storms are very terrible among these crags,—I used to drive my flock into the old temple for shelter. Rarely, too, Angapali, a shepherdess from a neighboring hillside, would run in, trembling and frightened. I warmed her in my arms and the old god looked down at us with a strange smile. But he never did us any evil, perchance because Angapali always adorned him with flowers. But they say....”

The shepherd stopped with a doubtful look at Darnu and was apparently ashamed to tell him more.

“Say what? My good man, tell me the whole story,” requested the sage.

“They say, all the worshippers of the old god have not perished.... Some are wandering around the world.... And, sometimes, of course rarely, they come here and ask like you the road to the temple and they go there to question the old god. These he turns to stone. Old men have often seen in the temple columns or statues in the form of seated men, richly covered with morning-glories and other vines. Birds have built their nests on some. Later on they gradually turn to dust.”

Darnu pondered deeply over the story. “Am I now near the goal?” he thought. For it is well known that “he, who like a blind man sees naught, like a deaf man, hears naught, like a tree is immovable and insensible, has attained unto rest and knowledge.”

He turned to the shepherd.

“My friend, where is the road to the temple?”

The shepherd pointed it out, and when Darnu commenced to ascend the overgrown path, he watched the sage a long time and then said to his young companions:

“Call me not the oldest of shepherds, but the youngest of suckling lambs if the old god is not soon going to have a new sacrifice. Yoke me like an ox or burden me like an ass with various loads, if another stone column is not to take its place in the old temple!...”

The shepherds respectfully hearkened to the old man and scattered over the pasture. And once more the herds grazed peacefully in the valley, the ploughman followed his plough, the sun shone, night fell, and men were occupied with their own cares and thought no more of wise Darnu. Soon,—in a few days or so,—another wanderer came to the foot of the mountain and he, too, asked about the temple. When he followed the directions of the shepherd and began to ascend the mountain cheerfully, the old man shook his head and said:

“There goes another.”

This was Purana, following in the steps of wise Darnu and thinking:

“It will never be said that Darnu found truth which Purana could not seek.”

III

Darnu ascended the mountain.

It was a hard climb. It was very evident that a human foot rarely passed over the neglected path, but Darnu cheerfully defied all obstacles and finally reached the half-ruined gates, above which was the ancient inscription: “I am Necessity, the mistress of every movement.” The walls had no other sculptures or decorations save fragments of some numbers and mysterious calculations.

Darnu entered the sanctuary. The old walls spread abroad the peace of destruction and death. But this destruction apparently had grown weary and left undisturbed the ruins of walls which had witnessed the march of centuries. In one wall there was a broad recess; several steps led up to an altar, on which was an idol of a gleaming black stone; the deity smiled strangely as it gazed upon this picture of ruin. From beneath it bubbled a brook which filled the wondrous silence with the murmur of its water. Several palms stretched their roots into its course and towered up to the blue sky, which freely looked down through the ruined roof....

Darnu involuntarily submitted to the wondrous spell of this place and decided to question the mysterious deity, whose spirit still seemed to fill the ruined temple. The sage scooped up some water out of the cold brook and gathered some fruit which an old fig-tree had shed and then he began his preparations according to all the rules in the books on contemplation. First of all he sat down facing the idol, drew up his legs, and looked at the image a long time, for he wanted to impress it upon his mind. Then he bared his abdomen and gazed upon that spot where he was bound to his mother before his earthly birth. For it is well known that all knowledge lies between being and not being and hence must come the revelations of contemplation....

In such a posture he saw the end of the first day and the beginning of the second. The heat of noon several times replaced the cool of evening and the shadows of night gave place to the light of the sun,—but Darnu remained in the same position, rarely plunging his gourd into the water or absent-mindedly picking up some fruit. The eyes of the sage grew dull and fixed; his limbs dried up. At first he felt the inconvenience and pain of immobility. Later on these sensations passed into complete unconsciousness, and before the stony gaze of the sage another world, the world of contemplation, began to unroll its strange apparitions and shapes. They no longer bore any relationship to the experiences of the meditating sage. They were disinterested, disconnected, and concerned only themselves, and that meant that they were the preludes to a revelation of the truth.

It was hard to say how long this state continued. The water in the gourd dried up, the palms quietly rustled, the ripening fruits broke off and fell at the sage’s feet, but he let them lie on the ground. He was almost freed from thirst and hunger. He was not warmed by the noontide sun nor chilled by the cool freshness of the night. Finally he ceased to distinguish the light of day and the darkness of night.

Then the inner eye of Darnu saw the long expected vision. Out of his abdomen grew a green trunk of bamboo tipped with a knot like an ordinary stem. From the knot grew another section and thus, rising ever higher, the trunk grew to consist of fifty joints, a number corresponding to the years of the sage. At the top, instead of leaves and blossoms, grew a something resembling the idol in the temple. This something looked down on Darnu with an evil smile.

“Poor Darnu,” it said finally. “Why did you come here and take so much trouble? What do you want, poor Darnu?”

“I seek the truth,” answered the sage.

“Then look on me, for I am what you sought. But I see that I am unpleasant and disagreeable to your sight.”

“You are incomprehensible,” answered Darnu.

“Listen, Darnu. Do you see the fifty joints of the reed?”

“The fifty joints of the reed are my years,” said the sage.

“And I sit above them, for I am ‘Necessity,’ the mistress of every movement. Every act, every breath, everything existing, everything living is impotent, powerless, helpless; under the control of necessity it attains the aim of its existence, which is death. I am that which has guided the fifty joints of your life from the cradle to the present moment. You have never done a single thing in your whole life: not a single thing of good or evil.... You have never given a coin to a beggar in a moment of pity nor dealt a single blow with hatred in your heart ... you have never cared for a single rose in your monastery gardens nor felled a single tree in the forest ... you have never fed a single animal nor killed a single gnat which was sucking your blood.... You have never made a single movement in your whole life without it being marked down in advance by me.... Because I am Necessity.... You have been proud of your actions or lamented bitterly for your sins. Your heart trembled from love or hate, but I—I was laughing at you, for I am Necessity and write down everything in advance. When you entered a square to teach fools what to do or what to avoid,—I was laughing and saying to myself: just see wise Darnu reveal his wisdom to those naÏve fools and share his sanctity with sinners. Not because Darnu is wise and holy, but because I, ‘Necessity,’ am like a stream and Darnu is like a leaf carried away by the current. Poor Darnu, you thought that you had been led hither by your search for truth.... But on these walls among my calculations was marked the day and the hour when you had to cross this threshold. Because I am Necessity.... Poor sage!”

“I loathe you,” said the seer with aversion.

“I know it. Because you considered yourself free and I am Necessity, the mistress of every movement.”

Then Darnu became angry; he seized the fifty joints of the reed, broke them off, and flung them away. “So,” he said, “so will I deal with the fifty joints of my life, because during these fifty years I was merely the tool of Necessity. Now I will free myself, because I have seen and I want to break my yoke.”

But Necessity, invisible in the darkness which surrounded the dull gaze of the sage, laughed and repeated:

“No, poor Darnu, you are still mine, because I am Necessity.”

Darnu opened his eyes with difficulty and suddenly he felt that his feet were swollen and painful. He started to rise, but at once he sank back again. Because he now saw clearly the significance of all the inscriptions and calculations in the temple. As soon as he began to move his limbs, he saw that his desire to do so had already been written on the wall.

As from another world, the voice of Necessity came to his ears:

“Rise now, poor Darnu; your limbs are swollen. You see 999,998 of your brothers in darkness do it.... It is necessary.”

In disgust Darnu remained in his former position, which now became still more painful. But he said to himself: “I will be one of those in the darkness who will not submit to Necessity, because I am free.”

Meanwhile the sun had reached the zenith, and as it looked through the holes in the roof, it began to parch the ill-protected body of the sage.... Darnu stretched out his hand toward his gourd.

But he at once saw what was written on the wall under the number 999,998 and Necessity again said:

“Poor sage, it is necessary that you drink.”

Darnu left the gourd untouched and said:

“I will not drink, because I am free.”

There came a laugh from a distant corner of the temple and at the same time one of the fruits of the fig-tree grew too heavy to hang any longer and fell at the feet of the sage. At the same time a number on the wall changed. Darnu realized at once that this was a new attempt of Necessity to destroy his inner liberty.

“I will not eat,” he said, “because I am free.”

Again there came a laugh from the depths of the temple and he heard the murmuring of the brook:

“Poor Darnu!”

The sage became more angry. He remained motionless without looking at the fruit which from time to time fell from the boughs, without hearkening to the seductive murmur of the waters, and he kept repeating one phrase to himself: “I am free, free, free!” And that no fruit might thwart his freedom by falling directly into his mouth, he closed it tightly and clenched his teeth.

Thus he sat for a long time, freeing himself from hunger and thirst and trying to spread abroad to all the corners of the earth confidence in his inner liberty. He grew thin, dried up, became wooden, lost track of time and space. He could no longer distinguish day and night, but he kept repeating and asserting to himself that he was free. After a certain space of time, the birds became accustomed to his immobility, flew up and perched upon him, and still later a pair of wild doves built their nest on the head of the free sage and heedlessly brought forth their young in the folds of his turban.

“O foolish birds!” thought wise Darnu, when first the calling of the parents and the peeping of the young penetrated his consciousness. “They do all this because they are not free and obey the laws of Necessity.” And even when his shoulders were covered with the droppings of the birds,—he again said to himself:

“Fools! They do this too, because they are not free.”

He counted himself perfectly free and close to the gods.

Below, out of the soil, the thin tendrils of climbing vines began to rise and to wind themselves around his immovable limbs....

IV

Only once was the wise Darnu partially recalled from complete unconsciousness and at that time he felt in some remote corner of his mind a sensation of mild astonishment.

This was caused by the appearance of the sage Purana. Exactly like Darnu he walked up to the temple, read the inscription above the entrance, and then going in, began to read the figures on the walls. The wise Purana was very unlike his stern companion. He was kindly and had a round face. A cross-section of his trunk would have formed a circle, his pleasant eyes sparkled, and his lips wore a smile. In his wisdom he was never obstinate like Darnu, and he sought blessed peace far more zealously than he did freedom.

Walking around the temple, he came to the recess, reverenced the deity, and then, with a glance at the brook and the fig tree, he said:

“Here is a deity with a pleasant smile, and there is a stream of fresh water and a fig-tree. What more does a man need for pleasant contemplation? Yes, and there’s Darnu. He is so blessed that the birds are building their nests upon him....”

The appearance of his wise friend was not especially joyous, but Purana, gazing at him reverently, said to himself:

“There’s no doubt he’s blessed; but he always loved too stern methods of contemplation. I do not aspire to the higher stages of blessedness, but I hope to tell the dwellers upon earth what I see on the lower planes.”

Then after enjoying the water and the juicy fruit, he sat down comfortably not far from Darnu, and he too prepared for contemplation in the proper way: that is, by baring his abdomen and gazing at it as the other sage had done.

So passed a time, more slowly than with Darnu, for the kindly Purana often interrupted his contemplation to enjoy the water and the juicy fruit. Finally out of the navel of the second wise man sprang a bamboo trunk and this attained a height of fifty joints, the number of the years of his life. On the top again sat “Necessity,” but in his semi-conscious state she seemed to him to smile pleasantly and he replied in the same way.

“Who are you, kind deity?” he asked.

“I am Necessity, who has governed the fifty years of your life. All that you have done, you did not do, but I did them, for you are but a leaf swept along by the stream and I am the mistress of every movement.”

“Blessed art thou,” said Purana. “I see that I have not come to you in vain. Continue in the future to execute your tasks for yourself and me and I will watch for you in pleasant contemplation.”

He lost himself in sleep with a happy smile on his lips. So he continued his pleasant contemplation, from time to time filling his gourd with water or picking up fruit which had fallen to the ground at his feet. Each time he stirred with less and less pleasure, since the drowsiness of contemplation was more and more strongly mastering him, and since he had already eaten the fruit which was nearest to him, he had to exert himself to obtain them from the tree.

Finally he said to himself:

“I’m a foolish man far removed from truth, and that’s why I have such foolish cares. Isn’t it because this good deity is so slow with her revelations? Here before me on the tree is ripe fruit and my stomach is empty.... But doesn’t the law of necessity say: ‘where there is an hungry stomach and fruit, the latter must of necessity enter the former’?... So, kind necessity, I submit to your power.... Isn’t that the greatest blessedness?”

Thereupon he buried himself in complete contemplation like Darnu, and he waited for necessity to manifest herself. In order to facilitate her task, he held his mouth open facing the fig tree....

He waited one day, two, three.... Gradually the smile congealed upon his face, his body dried up, the pleasant rotundity of his form disappeared, the fat under his skin wasted away and the sinews stood out distinctly through it. When at last the fruit ripened and fell, striking Purana on the nose,—the sage did not hear it fall nor did he feel the blow.... Another pair of doves built a nest in the folds of his turban, fledglings peeped soon in the nest, and the shoulders of Purana were covered thickly with the droppings of the birds. When the luxurious vines had enveloped Purana, it was impossible to distinguish him from his companion—the obstinate sage struggling against Necessity from the good-natured sage willingly submitting to it.

Absolute silence reigned in the temple, and the gleaming idol looked down on the two sages with its enigmatic and strange smile.

Fruit ripened and fell from the trees, the brook bubbled on, white clouds sailed across the blue sky and looked down into the interior of the temple and the sages sat on without manifesting any signs of life—one in the blessedness of denial, the other in the blessedness of submission to Necessity.

V

Eternal night had spread its black wings over both and no living being would ever have known the truth which the two sages had perceived at the summit of the fifty joints of the reed. But before the last spark which illumined in the darkness the consciousness of wise Darnu had been finally extinguished,—he heard again the same voice as before: Necessity was laughing in the gathering darkness, and this laughter, taciturn and soundless, seemed to Darnu a presentiment of death....

“Poor Darnu,” said the implacable deity, “pitiable sage! You thought you could leave me, you hoped that you could lay aside my yoke and by turning into an immobile column purchase thereby the consciousness of spiritual liberty....”

“Yes, I am free,” answered the thought of the obstinate sage. “I alone in the darkness of your servants do not obey the commands of Necessity....”

“Look here, poor Darnu....”

Suddenly with his inner eye he saw again the meaning of all the inscriptions and calculations on the walls of the temple. The numbers quietly changed, they grew or diminished automatically and one of them especially attracted his attention. It was the number 999,998.... And as he looked at it, two units more fell on the wall and the long number quietly began to change. Darnu trembled and Necessity smiled again.

“You understood, poor sage? In every hundred thousand of my blind servants there is always one obstinate man like you, and one lazy man like Purana.... You have both come here.... Greetings, ye sages, who have completed my calculations....”

Two tears rolled down from the dull eyes of the sage; they quietly rolled down over his dried up cheeks and fell upon the ground like two ripe fruits from the tree of his aged wisdom.

Beyond the walls of the temple everything went as usual. The sun shone, the winds blew, the people in the valley busied themselves with their cares, the clouds gathered in the heavens.... As they crossed the mountains, they became heavy and weak. A storm broke in the mountains....

Again as in times of yore, a foolish shepherd from a neighboring hillside drove hither his flock and from another direction a young and foolish shepherdess drove hither her flock. They met by the brook and the recess out of which the deity looked at them with its strange smile, and while the thunder roared, they embraced and cooed, just as 999,999 pairs had done in the same situation. If wise Darnu could have seen and heard them, he would certainly have said in the greatness of his wisdom:

“Fools, they are doing this not for themselves but for the pleasure of Necessity.”

The storm passed, the sun again played upon the grass, which was still covered with the sparkling drops of rain and lighted up the darkened interior of the temple.

“Look,” said the shepherdess, “see those two new statues. They never were here before.”

“Hush,” answered the shepherd. “Old men say that these are worshippers of the ancient deity. But they can’t do any harm.... Stay with them and I’ll go and find your stray sheep.”

He went out and left her alone with the idol and the two sages. Because she was a little afraid and because she was filled with youthful love and delight, she could not remain in one place but kept walking around the temple and singing loud songs of love and joy. When the storm was entirely passed and the edge of the dark cloud had hidden itself behind the distant summits of the range of mountains, she pulled some damp flowers and decked the idol with them. To conceal its unpleasant smile, she stuck in its mouth a fruit of the mountain nut with its leaves and stem.

Then she looked at it and laughed aloud.

That did not seem enough. She wanted to adorn the old men with flowers. But since good Purana still carried the nest with the young birds, she turned her attention to stern Darnu, whose nest had been abandoned. She removed the empty nest, cleaned of bird droppings the turban, hair and shoulders of the sage and washed his face with spring water. She thought that in this way she was recompensing the gods for their protection of her happiness. Because even this seemed little and she was overflowing with joy, she bent over and suddenly the blessed Darnu, standing on the very threshold of Nirvana, felt on his dry lips the vigorous kiss of the foolish girl....

Soon after the shepherd returned with a lamb which he had found, and the two went off, singing a cheerful song.

VI

In the meantime, that spark which had not been quite extinguished in the consciousness of wise Darnu, flickered up and commenced to burn brighter and brighter. First of all, in him as in a house where everyone is sleeping, thought awoke and began to wander restlessly in the darkness. Wise Darnu thought a whole hour and formed only one phrase:

“They were subject to Necessity....”

Another hour:

“But in the last instance, I too was subject to it....”

A third hour brought a new premise:

“In picking the fruit, I obeyed the law of Necessity.”

A fourth:

“But in refusing, I fulfilled her calculations.”

A fifth:

“Those fools live and love, but wise Purana and I die.”

A sixth:

“This perhaps is a work of Necessity, but it has very little sense.”

Then awakened thought finally stirred itself and began to rouse other sleeping faculties:

“If Purana and I die,” said wise Darnu to himself, “it will be inevitable but foolish. If I succeed in saving myself and my companion, it will be likewise necessary but sensible. Therefore we will save ourselves. For this I need will and strength.”

He rallied the little spark of will which had not been extinguished. He compelled it to raise his heavy eyelids.

The daylight broke in upon his consciousness, as it floods a room on the opening of the shutters. First he noticed the lifeless figure of his friend, with his set face and the tear that precedes death already on his cheeks. Darnu’s heart felt such pity for his ill-fated fellow seeker after truth that his will became stronger and stronger. It entered his hands and they began to move; his hands helped his feet.... This all took much longer to execute than to decide upon. But the following morning found Darnu’s gourd full of fresh water at Purana’s lips, and a piece of juicy fruit fell finally into the open mouth of the good-natured sage.

Then Purana’s jaws moved and he thought: “O benevolent Necessity. I see that you are now beginning to fulfill your promise.” But when he realized that it was not the goddess but his companion Darnu who was stirring around him, he felt himself rather insulted and said:

“Eight mountain ranges and seven seas, the sun and the holy gods, you, I, the universe,—all are moved by Necessity.... Why did you awaken me, Darnu? I was on the threshold of blessed peace.”

“You were like a corpse, friend Purana.”

“He who like a blind man sees nought, like a deaf man hears nought, like a tree is insensible and immovable, has attained rest.... Give me some more water to drink, friend Darnu....”

“Drink, Purana. I still see a tear on your cheek. Did not the blessedness of peace press it from your eyes?”

The wise sages spent the next three weeks in accustoming their mouths to eating and drinking and their limbs to moving, and during these three weeks they slept in the temple and warmed each other with the heat of their bodies till their strength returned.

At the beginning of the fourth week, they stood at the threshold of the ruined temple. Below at their feet lay the green slopes of the mountain descending into the valley.... Far in the distance were the winding rivers, the white houses of the villages and cities where people lived their normal lives, busied with cares, passions, love, anger and hate, where joy was changed for sorrow, and sorrow was healed by new joy, and where amid the roaring torrent of life men raised their eyes to heaven, seeking a star to guide them.... The sages stood and looked at the picture of life spread out at the entrance to the old temple.

“Where shall we go, friend Darnu?” asked the blinded Purana. “Are there no directions on the walls of the temple?”

“Leave the temple and its deity in peace,” answered Darnu. “If we go to the right, that will be in accordance with Necessity. If we go to the left, that too is in accordance with her. Don’t you understand, friend Purana, that this deity acknowledges as its laws everything that our choice decides upon. Necessity is not the master but merely the soulless accountant of our movements. The accountant marks only what has been. What must be—will be only by our will....”

“It means....”

“It means,—let us permit Necessity to worry over her calculations, as she will. Let us choose that path which leads us to the homes of our brothers.”

With cheerful steps both sages went down from the mountain heights into the valley, where human life flows on amid cares, love, and sorrow, where laughter echoes and tears flow....

“And where our steward, O Kassapa, covers the back of the slave Jebaka with welts,” added wise Darnu with a smile of reproach.

This is the story which the cheerful sage Ulaya told to the young son of the Rajah Lichava, when he had fallen into the idleness of despair.... Darnu and Purana smiled, denying nothing and affirming nothing, and Kassapa heard the story. Buried in thought he went away toward the home of his father, the powerful Rajah Lichava.

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