The tale begins when architect Harold Berger (Paul Hubschmid) arrives in India and travels to the kingdom of Maharaja Chandra (Walter Reyer), for whom he will build schools and hospitals. En route to the Maharajah's palace, Berger travels with a temple dancer named Seetha (Debra Paget), who has also been invited by the Maharajah, and saves her from a tiger. Seetha, whose father was European, has inadvertently caused the Maharajah to become infatuated with her, but she and the architect begin to fall in love. Predictably, this leads to tension between Chandra and Berger, exacerbated by scheming courtiers who believe that the Maharajah's potential marriage to the dancer could become a pretext for toppling him. The film is filled with action: a highlight is Seetha's ritual dance. At the end of ''Tiger'', Seetha and Berger escape together into the desert just as Berger's sister and her husband, an architect who works with Berger, arrive in Eschnapur. Chandra informs them that he now wants a tomb to be built for Seetha before any further work on the commissioned buildings.