Keepers by The Compendium Company, LLC
The story
You can see the rabbit if you are shown once, and then you can never not see it. It stands on the face of the full moon with a pestle, pounding — the elixir of immortality in the Chinese telling, rice cakes in the Japanese. It has been working without a break for several thousand years and shows no sign of finishing.
Where it actually comes from
The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, and it is kept across China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the diaspora under many names. The central themes are reunion and the harvest: families gather, eat mooncakes, carry lanterns and look at the moon together. The jade rabbit appears in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indian tellings, and the widely told Buddhist jātaka version has a hare offering itself into a fire to feed a beggar, who is revealed as a god and places the hare in the moon. The rabbit is often paired with Chang’e, the moon goddess of the better-known legend. The roundness of the moon and of the mooncake both stand for the family made whole.
What it does for a child
This is the festival for a family that is not all in one place, and a great many are not. The idea that a relative far away is looking at the same moon at the same moment is concrete enough for a small child to hold, and it converts distance from something sad into something shared. The rabbit’s story is also an unusually good one for children who feel they have less to offer than the people around them.
The Hare in the Moon
A story to read aloud · about 5 minutes
Long ago in India, when King Brahmadatta ruled in the city of Benares, a young hare lived in a green wood. On one side of the wood rose a mountain, on another side flowed the great river Ganges, and on the third side lay a little village.
The hare had three good friends: a monkey, a jackal and an otter. Each day they found their food in their own places, and each evening they met again. The hare was the wisest of them all. He often told his friends, “It is good to share what we have, to be kind and to keep the holy days.”
One evening the hare looked up at the sky, saw the moon and knew that the next day would be a holy day. “Tomorrow,” he told his friends, “if anyone hungry comes to you, share your food with them.” And his friends promised they would.
Early the next morning the otter went down to the riverbank, and there, buried in the sand, he found seven red fish. “Does anyone own these fish?” he called three times. No one answered, so he carried them home. The jackal found a jar of creamy curds left forgotten in an empty hut, and he too called out three times before he took it. The monkey climbed a tree and picked a bunch of ripe mangoes.
But the hare ate only grass, and he worried. “I cannot give grass to a hungry guest,” he thought. “I have no rice, no beans, no sesame seeds. If someone hungry comes to me, I will have nothing to give but myself.”
That day a hungry old traveler came walking through the wood, leaning on his staff. He stopped at the otter’s home. “If only I had something to eat,” he said. The otter gladly offered him the seven red fish.
“Let it wait until tomorrow,” said the traveler kindly, and he walked on. The jackal offered him curds, and the monkey offered him mangoes, a cool stream and shady trees. Each time, the traveler said, “Let it wait until tomorrow,” and walked on.
At last he came to the hare. The hare was delighted. “You were right to come to me,” he said. “Today I will give you a gift I have never given before. I have no fish, no curds and no mangoes. I have only myself, so I will stay with you, keep you warm and give you everything I have.”
The hare got up from his bed of grass. First he shook himself three times, so that any tiny creatures living in his fur could hop out safely. Then, happy to give, he bounded toward the traveler with his whole heart, as lightly as a swan landing on a bed of lotuses.
But before the hare could say another word, the traveler knelt down and gently caught him in his hands.
“Traveler,” said the hare in surprise, “why did you stop me? I wanted to give you everything I have.”
The old traveler smiled. “I am not what I seem,” he said. “I came to see how kind your heart truly is. Wise hare, your kindness shall be known for as long as the world lasts.”
Then he pressed his hands against the mountain, and with what he squeezed from it, he drew the shape of a hare on the round face of the moon. He laid the hare gently on a bed of fresh young grass, and then he was gone. Who he really was, the hare never knew.
The four friends lived happily together, sharing and being kind. And the hare’s picture is still there. On the next clear night when the moon is full, look closely. You will see the kind hare in the moon, shining down on everyone.
Adapted from ed. E. B. Cowell; trans. H. T. Francis and R. A. Neil, The Jātaka, or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, vol. III, No. 316: Sasa-Jātaka (1897). Public domain. Read the original.
More from the story
A few more pictures to look at together.
