A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.310

v2.c19.s3.t2.310

³ Just as, in memory of this act of self-sacrifice, Sakka draws a hare in the moon, using a mountain as his pencil, so the Kalmuks have preserved the legend of “Sakimuni” as the “hare in the moon,” s. *T. W. Rhys Davids*, Buddhism, London SPCK., 1890, p. 197. The “hare in the moon,” however, is not familiar only in India, Tibet, Burma, China and Japan, but also in America. In India the idea is most likely earlier than Buddhism, at least as early as the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa XI, 1, 5, 3 and Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad II, 11. Cf. *Benfey*, Pantschatantra I, 348 f.; *A. Pfungst*, Aus der indischen Kulturwelt, Stuttgart 1904, pp. 122 ff.; *I. Scheftelowitz*, ZB., VII, 1926, pp. 270 f.; *H. Kunike*, Amerikanische und asiatische Mondbilder (Mythologische Bibliothek VIII, 4, 1916, pp. 24ff.); *E. Seler* in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 39, 1907, p. 10. Just as in Tantrākhyāyika III, 3, so in a Hottentot story, the hare appears as a messenger of the moon. Cf. *W. H. I. Bleek*, Reineke Fuchs in Afrika, Weimar 1870, pp. 54 ff.; *A. Brief Account of Bushman Folklore*, London 1875, pp. 9 f.