The Prince and the Hungry Tigers

'I have just remembered another story!' Indra exclaimed as we set off from a teahouse, close to the gates of the Sagarmatha National Park. We had stopped for a few minutes to watch a pair of kittens playing in doorway, lounging in the sunlight, nipping back into the dark when they got afraid.

I had been trying to coax stories form Indra all the way on our trek. Any chance I could I encouraged him. I would never know what prompted him - usually he would claim he didnt know any, and then all of a sudden he would come out with something really moving. 'Go on then. Is it about this area, or Cats!?'.

'No not here. But in Nepal. Happened a long time ago, many thousands of years. Its called the Prince and the Hungry Tigers, so yes is about Cats.

'There was a King and a Queen, and they had three sons. One day, the children went to the forest nearby to relax.

There they saw a mother tiger, with five cubs. She was very near death with hunger, and the cubs were in a pitiful state. They would not last long.

'We must try and help her!' The youngest prince said to his older brothers.

'Are you crazy!' They replied. 'We have barely enough food to feed our own people, let alone wild animals in the forest. Come, we must get back'.

So they went back to the palace, but all the time the youngest prince could not help but think about the starving tiger family. He begged his brothers, but they remained resolute, they would not help the tiger.

Back at the Palace, he asked his Father and Mother, the King and the Queen, but they turned down his request as well. 'My son, it would be wrong to help them when people are starving'.

'But Father, we are taught that all beings are reincarnated. The tiger was a human once. How can we not help!' But the Kind just shook his head sadly.

The Youngest Prince decided that he would have to do something. He took all his jewellery and threw it out the window. Calling to his brothers he said 'My Jewellry has gone. It must have been stolen. Look, there is someone running off with it'.

The older Princes, and then the servants of the Palace all rushed outside to pick up the Jewellry off the path and to try and catch the imaginary thief. Meanwhile, the young Prince snuck out the back to the forrest.

There he found the Mother Tiger, so weak she had collapsed. He held our the few scraps of food that he had bought, but she was too weak to even eat them. 'She must have living blood', the prince thought, so he cut his wrist and let the blood fall into the tigers mouth.

The Tiger mother started licking the blood as it dripped and raised herself up. 'She must have living meat' the prince thought, so he offered her his hand. She bit into the flesh, and seemed to grow more strength.

'She must have a kill to feed her cubs' the young prince thought as the Tiger, now stronger, starting eating his arm. So he laid down and allowed her to bite his neck, sever his jugular and to kill him. He sacrificed himself so the Tiger Family might live.

At that moment, the sky went dark, like storm was overhead or night was falling. But there was no storm and it was full day. The older princes realised their brother was missing and ran for the forrest to try and find him.

But all they found when they arrived where his bones. The Tiger Mother had fed all the rest to her cubs. Tearfully they gathered up his remains and took them back to the King and Queen.

The King and Queen, the two remaining Princes and the whole staff of the Palace were utterly devastated and started crying. The sky was still dark, and rain started falling, as if the heavens were crying for the young princes sacrifice as well.

But then it seemed as if a voice called to them from the sky. 'Mother, Father, brothers - do not cry. I am well and happy in heaven and waiting for my next rebirth'.

And the Young Prince who sacrificed himself for the Hungry Tigers was reborn a few centuries later - as the Buddha, Shakyamuni, Siddartha Gautama, in Lumbhini.

He came back to the Palace and Forest where he had lived his previous life, and knew the story. He pointed to a stupa, and asked someone to go and check to see if his bones were still inside. Only Buddhas know the secrets of their previous lives.

The Tiger was reborn as well. She became his mothers sister, his second mother, his Tiger Mother, who looked after him when his mother died when he was young.

I suppose the story shows that if you do something good, even if the cost is high, then it is the right thing to do.