Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c11.s1.41

c11.s1.41

HARE. A legend often depicted on vihāra walls is that of the Hare in the Moon. The Hare story is briefly as follows: The Bōdhisatta was born as a hare who one day observed that other animals provided themselves with stores of food, from which, if need were, they would have something to offer to a beggar; reflecting that he himself had nothing suitable, and could hardly offer grass, he determined to offer his own flesh if the occasion arose. Perceiving this splendid display of virtue, Śakra descended to the forest and appeared to the hare in the form of a Brahman, who addressed the hare thus: “Wise Sir, if I could get something to eat, after keeping the fast, I would perform all my priestly duties.” To which the hare replied, “Brahman, you have done well in coming to me for food. This day I will grant you a boon that I have never granted before, but you shall not break the moral law by taking animal life. Go, friend, and when you have piled together logs of wood and kindled a fire, come and let me know, and I will sacrifice myself by falling into the midst of the flames, and when my body is roasted, you shall eat my flesh and fulfil all your priestly duties.” Śakra did accordingly, though the fire was but a feigned one. The Bōdhisatta came, and offering his whole body as a free gift, he sprang up, and like a royal swan alighting on a cluster of lotuses, in an ecstacy of joy he fell on the heap of live coals. He was not burnt by the feigned fire; Śakra revealed himself as having come to put the hare's virtue to the test, and saying, “O wise hare, be thy virtue known throughout a whole æon,” he took up the hare and painted the figure of it on the moon, then replaced it on a bed of grass in the same forest and returned to his own place in heaven. This story is told in the Sasa jataka (ed., Cowell, Cambridge, Vol. III., p. 34). The hare is used decoratively in the forest scene shown on Pl. XVI.; (ceiling painting) the hares are arranged in pairs, face to face, or in heraldic language ‘affronted’. The hare does not appear to be used with conscious symbolism in Sinhalese art; in Hindu mythology it stands for mildness and speed. In simple representations of the moon, which like those of the sun, are a common vihāra decoration, the hare is usually represented on the moon’s disc. Other paintings show Śakra with a brush in one hand, and the hare under its left arm, painting its form on the moon’s disk.