The King Who Fed the World

The sages told the Pandavas of King Rantideva, whose name became, for all the ages after, the very byword for generosity - a king so selfless in his giving that he wished, in the end, not for heaven nor liberation nor any reward at all, but only to take upon himself the suffering of every living creature.

Rantideva was a great and righteous king, but he was famed above every other king for one thing: his boundless charity and compassion. He could not bear to see any creature suffer want while he had anything at all to give. He gave away his wealth as fast as it came to him, performing great sacrifices and feeding and clothing and sheltering all who came to his door, the high and the low alike, asking nothing in return. He made no store, kept no treasure, hoarded nothing; whatever he had passed at once through his hands to those who needed it. He counted his own comfort as nothing beside the relief of others' pain.

So complete was Rantideva's devotion to giving that he made it his rule never to eat or drink until he had first fed and satisfied everyone else - until every guest, every hungry person, every creature that came to him had been cared for. Only after all others had eaten would the king take whatever, if anything, was left.

Often there was little or nothing left for himself, and the king and his own family went hungry and thirsty while strangers were fed at their hands. But Rantideva counted this no hardship; it was his joy. He took more delight in the satisfaction of others than in his own comfort, and he would rather go without himself than turn away a single soul in need. He held that the truest wealth of a king was not what he kept but what he gave, and the truest happiness not in being filled but in filling others.

This was his way for many years, in good times - and then a hard testing came, in the form of a great famine.

A terrible famine fell upon the land. The rains failed, the crops withered, and hunger spread through the kingdom. And Rantideva did what his whole nature demanded: he gave. He poured out all his stores of grain, all his wealth, all his possessions, to feed his starving people, holding nothing back for himself or his own household. He gave until his treasuries were empty and his granaries were bare and there was nothing left in all his palace to give.

And then he and his own family began to starve along with the poorest of his subjects, for he had kept nothing back. The king who had fed multitudes now had no food for himself, his wife, or his children. Yet even now he did not regret his giving, nor try to recover what he had given; he accepted his own hunger as the natural price of his charity, and bore it without complaint.

For many days - the tellings say forty-eight days and nights - the king and his family fasted, taking neither food nor water, growing weak and gaunt and close to death, having given everything away. They were dying of the very famine they had emptied themselves to relieve in others.

At last, after the long fasting, a little food came to the starving royal family - a small meal of cooked rice and a sweet dish, and some water to drink. It was not much, but to people who had eaten nothing for so long and were at the very point of death from hunger and thirst, it was life itself. Weak and trembling, the king and his family prepared at last to break their terrible fast and save their lives with this small, precious meal.

But at the very moment they were about to eat, a guest appeared at the door - a hungry brahmin, himself starving in the famine, who came begging for food. And Rantideva, even now, even at the edge of death, even with the first food in forty-eight days before him, did not hesitate. He saw a hungry guest, and his whole nature answered. With a glad heart he took a portion of the little food and gave it to the brahmin, who ate and was satisfied and blessed the king and went his way.

What remained was now even less - barely enough to keep the family alive. But it would have to do, and again they prepared to eat.

But the testing was not over. As the family again prepared to eat the little that was left, another hungry guest arrived - a laborer, a man of low station, starving like all the rest. And again Rantideva, without a moment's hesitation, gave him a share of the dwindling food, and the man ate and was filled and departed.

And then came another still: a man with a pack of hungry dogs, all of them famished, begging food for himself and his animals. And Rantideva gave them nearly all that remained - feeding not only the man but his dogs as well, for the king's compassion did not stop at human beings but reached to every hungry creature. The dogs and their master ate, and were satisfied, and the king bowed to them as they went, grateful to have been allowed to serve them.

Now almost nothing of the meal was left - only a little water remained, a single draught, the last thing standing between the king himself and death by thirst. His family had given and given; the food was gone; and the king, who had not eaten or drunk in forty-eight days, lifted the last water to his lips at last, perishing for it.

Just as Rantideva was about to drink the last of the water - the only thing that could now save his own life - one final guest appeared. It was an outcaste, a chandala, the most despised of men, and he was dying of thirst, and he begged the king for water, crying out for a drink to save his life.

The king looked at the last water in his hands, the water that was his own only hope of survival, and he looked at the dying outcaste before him, and he did not hesitate even now. He gave his last water to the thirsty outcaste, depriving himself of the final drink that stood between him and death, so that this despised and dying man might live.

And as he gave it, Rantideva spoke a prayer that has been remembered ever since as the very summit of selfless compassion. He did not pray for his own life, nor for food, nor for relief. "I do not pray," he said, "for the supreme state of the gods with all its powers; I do not pray even for liberation, for release from the round of birth and death. I pray only for this: that I may dwell within all suffering creatures, and take their pain upon myself, and bear their sorrow in my own person, so that they may be freed from misery. Let me suffer, if only others need not." And he gave the water gladly to the outcaste, asking nothing, wishing only to relieve another's thirst even as he himself was dying of it.

And in that supreme moment - when the king gave away his very last water, and his life with it, to a dying outcaste, wishing only to bear the suffering of all beings - the testing reached its end and its purpose was revealed.

For the guests who had come one after another, taking the king's last food and water, had been no ordinary petitioners. They had been the great gods themselves, come in disguise to test whether Rantideva's fabled generosity and compassion were as boundless as they were said to be - whether he would truly give his very last food and his very last water, and his own life, to others, even to the most despised, even at the cost of his own death. And he had. He had passed the highest test of charity that can be set to any soul, holding back nothing, not even his life, and asking in return not even heaven, but only to bear the pain of others.

The gods cast off their disguises and stood revealed before the king in their radiance, and they praised him as the most generous and compassionate of all beings. They restored him and his family, lifted the famine, and blessed him with glory, and granted him the highest and most lasting reward - far greater than the mere food and water he had given away. The king who had wished only to relieve the suffering of others, and to claim nothing for himself, was raised by that very selflessness to the summit of blessedness.

The sages drew the lesson for the Pandavas, and it is the very crown of all the teachings on charity.

"You have heard how heaven measures a gift not by its size but by its cost, and how the poor who give their all give more than the rich who give from plenty. Rantideva is the highest example of that truth, and he carries it one step further still. He gave not merely from poverty but from the very edge of death; he gave his last food and his last water, and his own life with them, and gave them not only to the worthy and the high but to the laborer, to the dogs, to the despised outcaste, making no distinction at all, for his compassion reached to every suffering creature alike.

"And the height of him is in his prayer. He did not give in order to win heaven, or merit, or liberation, or any reward. He wished for none of these. He wished only to dwell in all beings and take their suffering upon himself, that they might be free of pain. This is the purest charity there is - giving with no thought of reward, wishing only to relieve the suffering of others, willing even to bear their pain in one's own person. There is no higher dharma than this compassion that forgets itself entirely in the care of others; and the one who reaches it, like Rantideva, has reached the summit, and is raised by his very selflessness above all who give for gain."

And the Pandavas, who would one day rule again and have much to give, took the name and the prayer of Rantideva into their hearts as the measure of what true generosity could be.