The Hare on the Moon

At a Glance

• Central figures: The Bodhisatta, reborn as a hare; his three companions - a monkey, a jackal, and an otter; Sakka, king of the devas, disguised as a wandering brahmin.
• Setting: A forest near a river in ancient India, during a time when the Bodhisatta kept the precepts as an animal and taught his companions to observe the uposatha (holy day).
• The turn: A brahmin appears begging food on the fast day, and the hare - owning nothing but grass and his own body - offers himself as a meal by leaping into a fire.
• The outcome: The fire does not burn. Sakka reveals himself and declares the hare’s sacrifice the greatest act of generosity he has witnessed, then draws the hare’s likeness on the face of the moon.
• The legacy: The mark on the moon, which in the Pali tradition is called the hare-mark, visible to anyone who looks up on a clear night.

Four animals lived together near a bend in the river: an otter, a jackal, a monkey, and a hare. They were not the same kind of creature, but they kept the same company, and the hare - who was the Bodhisatta in that life - taught the others what he knew of right conduct. Give alms. Keep the precepts. Observe the uposatha days. The other three listened because the hare was small and quiet and never raised his voice, and animals who never raise their voices are sometimes worth listening to.

The Fast Day

The full moon was coming. The hare gathered his three friends beneath a fig tree and reminded them: tomorrow was the uposatha. They should fast from midday onward. And if a beggar came asking for food, each of them should give from whatever he had, holding nothing back.

The otter nodded. The jackal nodded. The monkey nodded. They went to their separate places to sleep.

The otter went down to the riverbank early the next morning and found seven red fish laid out in a row on the mud. Someone had caught them and left them - or lost them - and the otter called out three times, asking if they belonged to anyone. No one answered. He carried the fish back to his den and set them aside: if a beggar came, these would be his gift.

The jackal found a lizard and a pot of curdled milk that someone had abandoned near a field. He called out three times. No one claimed them. He brought them home and waited.

The monkey climbed into the mango grove and picked a cluster of ripe fruit, heavy and golden-skinned. He laid them on a broad leaf near the path. His offering was ready.

The hare sat in the grass and thought. He had nothing. A hare eats grass, and kusa grass, and wild herbs - and no one who comes begging is fed by grass. He considered his situation plainly. He had his body. He had nothing else. If a beggar came, he would offer his flesh - roasted in a fire, since a brahmin would not eat raw meat.

He made this resolution calmly. He did not waver in it. He went back to the clearing and waited for the day to pass.

The Brahmin at the Clearing

Sakka, king of the devas, watched all this from his heaven. He watched the otter find the fish. He watched the jackal find the curdled milk. He watched the monkey arrange the mangoes. He watched the hare sit still in the grass and decide to die.

Sakka wanted to test them. He took the form of an old brahmin - thin, dusty, carrying a staff and an empty bowl - and came down to the forest.

He went first to the otter. The otter saw the bowl and brought out his seven red fish without hesitation.

“These are yours,” the otter said.

The brahmin thanked him and moved on. He did not take the fish.

He went to the jackal. The jackal offered the lizard and the pot of curdled milk, freely, without bargaining.

The brahmin thanked him and moved on.

He went to the monkey. The monkey brought the mangoes, their skins splitting with ripeness, and laid them at the brahmin’s feet.

The brahmin thanked him and moved on.

The Fire That Did Not Burn

The brahmin came to the hare last. The hare was sitting in the clearing, very still.

“I am hungry,” the brahmin said. “I have traveled far.”

“I will feed you,” the hare said. “But I have no fish, no fruit, no curdled milk. I eat grass. You cannot eat grass. What I have is myself. Build a fire, and when the coals are hot I will jump in. When my body is cooked, eat.”

The brahmin looked at the hare for a long time. Then he gathered sticks and leaves and built a fire. He blew on it until the flames stood waist-high and the heat pressed outward like a wall.

The hare rose. He shook his body three times - once to dislodge any insects living in his fur, so that they would not die with him. He would not take even a louse to its death unwillingly. Then he leaped.

He leaped into the center of the fire the way a wild swan drops into a lotus pond. Without flinching. Without slowing.

The flames did not burn him. They were cold. The fire had no heat at all - it felt like snow, like river water in the cool season. The hare stood in the middle of the blaze and was not harmed.

The brahmin’s form dissolved. Sakka stood in his true shape, radiant, the staff and bowl gone, the dust gone.

“Hare,” Sakka said. “The fire will not take you. Your virtue is too great for any fire in this world to consume.”

The Mark on the Moon

Sakka reached down and squeezed a mountain - the texts say he squeezed it the way a man squeezes a sponge - and with the essence of the rock he painted the hare’s likeness on the face of the moon. He drew it large enough that every being in every world could see it: ears, haunches, the small round eye. He set the hare back in the clearing, alive and whole.

“As long as this moon endures,” Sakka said, “beings will look up and see you. They will remember what you were willing to give.”

Then Sakka returned to his heaven. The fire went out. The clearing smelled of woodsmoke and nothing else. The otter, the jackal, and the monkey came to the hare and sat with him in the grass, and none of them spoke for a long while.

The Hare in the Grass

The hare lived the rest of that life as hares do - eating kusa grass, keeping the uposatha, teaching the precepts to whoever would listen. He was small. He did not raise his voice. He had been willing to give the one thing he had, and it had not been taken from him, and he did not speak of it again.

But the mark stayed. It stays. On clear nights, in the weeks around the full moon, the shape is visible from any open field - the long ears, the crouched body, the eye. The Pali commentators call it the hare-mark. It does not fade.