Prince Sattva was one of the previous incarnations of

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

, according to a

jataka The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, th ...

story.

Ascetic life

The son of King Maharatha, he became an ascetic and gained a few disciples.

Dilemma

On his walk with his closest disciple, he comes to the edge of a cliff, at the bottom of which is a starving tigress about to eat her newborn cubs in desperation. The bodhisattva tells his disciple to go look for food and he will stay and try to figure out a way to save her and her young. While his disciple is gone, the

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

reflects that while his disciple very well may not find food, his body is just so much flesh as the tradition states, and by giving it up, he can save the tigress' purity and her cubs' lives. He leaps off the cliff to his death, attracting the tigress' attention with his impact, and she eats his body.

Achievement and legacy

In this way, he comes closer to perfecting some of the ten Buddhist perfections: those of generosity, renunciation, morality, resolution and equanimity. His disciple returns, having not found food, and upon discovering what the bodhisattva has done, rejoices in his good deed. He comes back with other disciples and they and the heavens shower the spot with lotus flowers.

Stupa

The Chinese pilgrim

Faxian Faxian (法顯 ; 337 CE – c. 422 CE), also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, h ...

reported one of the four great stupas of northern India that commemorates this incarnation's ''dehadana''. This dehadana is known as "gift of the body" in Indian Buddhist narrative literature.R. Ohnuma, Dehadana: The 'Gift of the Body' in Indian Buddhist narrative literature.199

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References

Gautama Buddha Jataka tales Indian folklore Indian literature Indian fairy tales Indian legendary characters Indian legends {{buddhist-myth-stub