Tiger in Indian Mythology

The young Prince Mahasattva was walking over the hills with his brothers when they saw, a tigress with two cubs. The Tigress was little more than a skeleton, and so mad with hunger that she was about to eat her young. Seeing this Prince Mahasattva left his brothers, and desirous of saving the animals lives, threw himself in front of the tigress and lay still, waiting for the Tigress to eat him. But she was too weak and exhausted even to bite. So he pricked himself with a sharp thorn to draw blood. By licking the blood the Tigress gained enough strength to devour the Prince, leaving only his bones. Prince Mahasattva was then revealed to be the Buddha as a bodhisattva- one of the numerous preparatory stages of existence through which he passed before emerging as the Enlightened One. It is significant that the story is treated as a fact rather than as a legend in the Buddhist texts. The spot where it is said to have happened is revered and commemorated by a stupa or shrine.

As elsewhere it is the mixture of awe for the power of the Tiger and the symbolic magic with which it is invested that determines the relationship between man and Tiger in many parts of India. In one part of northern Bengal the Tiger God was worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims.