Banyan Deer (Nigrodhamiga Jataka)
The Banyan Deer is a central figure in the Nigrodhamiga Jataka, one of the most famous Buddhist Jataka tales recounting the previous lives of the Buddha. In this story, the Bodhisattva (future Buddha) was born as a magnificent golden deer named King Banyan Deer, leader of a herd of 500 deer in the forests near Benares (Varanasi). The king of Benares was an avid hunter who frequently rode out to hunt deer, causing chaos and death throughout the forest. To prevent indiscriminate killing, the Banyan Deer — along with the leader of the opposing monkey deer herd — made a pact with the king: one dee