* * *

East West Cultural Institute

Hindus call the moon sasanka and the Sanskrit word for moon is cacin. Both words can be translated as “that which is marked with hare” and in common with the Indian view, the Celts, the Chinese and the Aztecs all believed they saw the shape of of a hare on the face of the full moon. If you go out and look at the full moon as it sets, you may well agree. The image on the right is from the East West Cultural Institute where the following claim is made:

“You are the Wind God, the God of Death, the God of Fire, the Lord of the Ocean, a Rabbit….”

A Rabbit??!

The actual Sanskrit word is “Śaśānka” or “the gray one”, which refers to a rabbit, but what does this term mean?
In the culture of India, the Rabbit refers to the Moon. So Arjuna is praising Krishna as the greatest of the heavenly bodies seen in the night sky (see also Bhagavad Gita verse XI:21)” [1].

I have no idea but what is certain is that the concept of the hare in the moon has a long and illustrious history.There is, undoubtedly, a wealth of stories related to the hare and many of those stories explicitly connect the hare with the moon. Below is a very small selection. Without too much difficulty you can find many more. Everything that follows is related here solely for the sake of the stories.

Albrecht Dürer – Young Hare, 1502,

A Birth-Story in the Jataka, deals specifically with the mark of the hare on the moon. It tells of a time when the Future Buddha was born as a hare. On a particular fast-day, Sakka decided to try the hare and paid him a visit, disguised as a Brahman. On seeing him the Hare asked, “Brahman, why stand you there?” He received the reply: “Pandit, if I could but get something to eat, I would keep fast-day vows, and perform the duties of a monk.” The Hare instructed him to build a fire and declared, “I will sacrifice my life by jumping into the bed of live coals. And as soon as my body is cooked, do you eat of my flesh, and perform the duties of a monk.” Sakka made a fire but when the Hare ‘jumped into the bed of coals, as delighted in mind as a royal flamingo when he alights in a cluster of lotuses’, he found the fire was cold and asked for an explanation. Then Sakka revealed his true identity and to proclaim Hare’s virtue until the end of this world cycle, he squeezed a mountain and, with the juice, he drew the outline of a hare on the moon. You can read the full story here [2].

Other stories tend to focus more on a hare living in the moon or closely associated with a moon goddess.

In Africa they tell a story about the start of the world when the Moon wished to give humans the gift of immortality. She sent Hare to tell the people: ‘Just as the Moon dies and rises again so shall you.’ Unfortunately, Hare confused the message and said: ‘Just as the Moon dies and perishes, so shall you.’. When they heard Hare’s message, all the people became mortal. Sooner or later, the Moon found out what Hare had done and she was so angry that she beat Hare with a stick and split his nose [3].

Chinese mythology tells of a white hare who lives on the moon and stirs up the elixir of life. It is said Ch’ang O ate an immortality pill intended for her husband and fled to the moon to escape his anger. She became mistress of the moon palace but then she coughed up the pill, which became a hare. Ch’ang O ordered the hare to make her another pill but when she swallowed that pill she turned into a three legged toad! [4].

This Image is from The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art. It shows an “Embroidered Chinese pillow depicting the legendary lunar hare who passes his days on the moon pounding out the elixir of immortality. A symbol of longevity said to live 1,000 years, the hare was depicted in tomb sculpture as early as the Han dynasty (Berliner 70) 20th Century. Heibi Province” (5).
Figures of white hares were made, in China, to celebrate the moon festival and the white hare is seen as a a yin creature who is guardian of wild animals and comes from the North Pole bringing the greetings of the Moon goddess [6].

Closer to home, The Celts believed the hare (which “represented love, fertility and growth and was associated with the Moon, dawn and Easter – death, redemption and resurrection”) was a favourite of the goddess Eostre who changed into a hare at the full Moon [7]. Echoes of all this still resonate with us today in the concept of the modern western Easter bunny, whose origins trace back to a pagan vernal festival devoted to the Celtic goddess Eostre, when the moon hare laid eggs for good children [8].

Image from: The Graphics Fairy

Sources used and further reading:

[1] East West Cultural Institute

[2] Full story of ‘The Hare-mark in the Moon’ (The Harvard Classics (1909–14). ‘Buddhist Writings’. Translated from the J taka (iii. 5110), and constituting Birth-Story 316) at Bartleby.com

[3] Lots of detail and variations of this at : ‘African folktales in the New World’ By William Russell Bascom (Google Books)

[4,5,7,8] ‘The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art’ By Hope B. Werness (Google Books).

[6] h2g2.com (I don’t what h2g2 is but this page was formerly at the bbc)