Sakka, on hearing what he said, by his miraculous power caused a heap of burning coals to appear, and came and told the Bodhisatta. Rising from his bed of kuca grass and coming to the place, he thrice shook himself that if there were any insects within his coat, they might escape death. Then offering his whole body as a free gift he sprang up, and like a royal swan, alighting on a cluster of lotuses, in an ecstasy of joy he fell on the heap of live coals. But the flame failed even to heat the pores of the hair on the body of the Bodhisatta, and it was as if he had entered a region of frost. Then he addressed Sakka in these words: "Brahmin, the fire you have kindled is icy-cold: it fails to beat even the pores of the hair on my body. What is the meaning of this?" "Wise sir," he replied, "I am no brahmin. I am Sakka, and I have come to put your virtue to the test." The Bodhisatta said, "If not only thou, Sakka, but all the inhabitants of the world were to try me in this matter of almsgiving, they would not find in me any unwillingness to give," and with this the Bodhisatta uttered a cry of exultation like a lion roaring. Then said Sakka to the Bodhisatta, "O wise hare, he thy virtue known throughout a whole won." And squeezing the mountain, with the essence thus extracted, he daubed the sign of a hare on the orb of the moon. And after depositing the hare on a bed of young kuca grass, in the same wooded part of the jungle, Sakka returned to his own place in heaven. [56] And these four wise creatures dwelt happily and harmoniously together, fulfilling the moral law and observing holy days, till they departed to fare according to their deeds.

The Master, when he had ended his lesson, revealed the Truths and identified the Birth:--At the conclusion of the Truths the householder, who gave as a free-gift all the Buddhist requisites, attained fruition of the First Path:--" At that time Ananda was the otter, Moggallana was the jackal, Sariputta the monkey, and I myself was the wise hare."

Footnotes

^34:1 See R. Morris, Folk-Lore Journal, ii. 336 and 370. Jatakamala, No. 6. On the wide-spread prevalence of the legend of the Hare in the Moon, see T. Harley's Moon-Lore, p. 60.