The Hare's Gift to the Hungry Beggar

A hare, a monkey, a jackal, and an otter, all close friends, had each vowed to observe a sacred fasting day by giving generously to any beggar who came asking for food. The otter had fish to offer, the jackal had a stolen pot of curd and meat, and the monkey had ripe mangoes — each felt satisfied that he could easily fulfill his vow if tested.

The hare, however, possessed nothing to give but the grass he himself ate, which no human beggar could possibly eat. When an old beggar — secretly the god Sakka in disguise, testing the sincerity of all four animals — arrived at the hare's home asking for food, the hare thought carefully and then made an extraordinary decision: he asked the beggar to build a fire, and when it was lit, the hare offered his own body as the meal, leaping directly into the flames so that the beggar would not go hungry.

Sakka, moved beyond measure by a creature willing to give literally everything he had including his own life rather than turn a hungry stranger away empty-handed, caused the fire to turn cool and harmless before it could burn the hare at all, and in tribute painted the hare's image onto the face of the moon itself, where it can still be seen on a clear night — a mark of honor for the purest generosity any of the four friends had shown that day, precisely because it was the one who had the least to give who somehow found a way to give the most.