Vessantara

Vessantara, in Buddhist mythology, a previous incarnation of the Buddha Gotama. A crown prince, Vessantara was famous for his vast generosity, and, to the despair of his more practical-minded father, he accepted banishment to the forest, where he attained the ultimate self-abnegation by giving away his children and his wife and in some accounts even his own eyes. These and all the rest were restored to him miraculously, and, responding to the demands of his...