Prince Sattva Sacrificing himself to Tigers

When I was in Dunhuang, China I went to the caves which have been carved out of the cliffs and painted by Buddhist monks for thousands of years. While there I bought a cheap, flashy tourist book of images which seemed to be written in English. The English in the book seems to have been written without the aid of any native speaker, and so it is ungrammatical and awkward. But I also love the sound of it. I am interested in translation and in language-games. Error and mutation are an essential part of the evoluion of language, one that has been stalled by spell-checkers and scholarly journals. I hope that as English is now a world language, it will divide and branch and new dialects will be born. Not that I think that China will be using English (more like the other way around - and I'm excited for that). Anyway, when grammar is not correct a light goes off in our minds that increases our sensitivity to the words being used. I hope that I have conveyed a sense of respect for this writing. This story is quite beautiful, and there is no problem understanding the plot. The pictures are scanned from the book. All errors including punctuation taken from the original.

Prince Sattva Sacrificing himself to Tigers

DaChe, the king of a state in ancient India, had three sons being named Mohe-Polo, Mohe-Tipo, and Mohe-Sattva respectively.
One day, three princes went out for a tour together. They suddenly found seven new-born tigerlings cried piteously for food around their mother being dead-beat and at her last gasp. Three princes had a lot of sympathy with them. The elder prince said: “The death comes to them step by step, She, either to eat her children or to die together. It’s terrible! Oh, my god! “The second prince said: “Yes. Too horrible to look at. What should we do for them? “They could do nothing about it except for nail-biting. The eye-catching sceneries along the way could not detain them. They were low in spirits and came back.
The eighth life approaching death as well as brother’s sorrowful and powerless expressions activated little prince Sattva. He went and meditated on it, the image of eight tiger’s misery appeared in his mind constantly. “I have to save them, they ought enjoy themselves, I should sacrifice myself to those who lived miserably, relieve them out of the abyss of misery! “ Prince Sattva was refreshed and overjoyed after determining to sacrificing himself to feed tigers.
Sattva asked him brothers going first owing to being afraid of being discouraged. He came to tigers alone and lay by tiger’s mouth nakedly. But to his disappointment that dead-beat tiger could do nothing. Sattva looked at the tigers vexedly and thought that his detainment would bring end to tigers. He would self-reproached forever. He ascended up the cliff urgently and prayed silently for continuing tiger’s lives. He then pierced his blood vessel by the aid of a dried bamboo and jumped down. A grand, solemn and stirring scene appeared in the world. All Devas were touched by him, sang praise of him. Numerous fragrant flowers descended down and covered the whole valley.
The tiger at her last grasp snuffled the blood and lapped which refreshed her appreciably, finally she ate up Sattva and went away together with her children. Sattva’s brother returned to look for him after a long time’s waiting. What came into their eyes were the bloodily clothes and remains. They made out what left there were Sattva’s. They regretted to leave their little brother alone and cried their hearts out.
The queen, in the meanwhile, was sleeping in the daytime. She suddenly dreamed about that her two breasts being sliced off together with her full teeth dropped as well as the little one of here three favorite pigeons was hold in glede’s mouth. She woke up with a start and being told what had happened to her favorite son. She could not control here eyes and hurriedly came to the valley in company with the king. They were filled with deep sorrow and lost consciousness while finding Sattva’s remains and clothes left for them. Finally, they were rescued to come to their senses and sent Sattva’s remains back to the palace as well as built a pagoda to attend Sattva’s relics there. It enjoyed endless stream of pilgrims so that prince Sattva could attain enlightenment and become Buddha as soon as possible.

- "Dunhuang & Silk Road" Du Doucheng (Lanzhou University) and Wang Shuqing (Dunhuang Academe). Published by Sea Sky Publishing House, Shenzhen, China, May, 2005. pp. 70-71