Once, in a border village in Kási, there lived a number of carpenters. One day, one of them, a bald, grey-haired man, was planing some wood when a mosquito settled on his head and stung him. He asked his son who was sitting by to drive it away. The boy raised an axe, and meaning to drive away the mosquito, cleft his father's head in two, killing him. The Bodhisatta, a trader, saw this incident. " Better an enemy with sense than such a friend," said he.
The story was related in reference to some inhabitants of a hamlet in Magadha who were worried by mosquitoes when working in the jungle. One day they armed themselves with arrows, and while trying to shoot the mosquitoes, shot each other. The Buddha saw them outside the village greatly disabled because of their folly. J.i.246 48.