The Hare's Gift to the Moon

A hare, a monkey, a jackal, and an otter, close friends who lived near a forest path, made a vow one holy evening that any beggar who came to them hungry would be fed generously from whatever food they had.

An old beggar — in truth the god Sakka, testing their devotion — visited each in turn. The otter offered fish, the jackal offered a lizard and a pot of curdled milk he had found, the monkey offered ripe mangoes. But the hare, who could gather nothing but grass, had nothing to give that a human could eat.

Determined to honor his vow anyway, the hare asked the beggar to build a fire, and then leapt into the flames himself, offering his own body as the only meal he had. Sakka, moved beyond measure by this ultimate generosity, drew the hare's image onto the face of the moon before he could be harmed at all, so that his selflessness would be remembered by every living being who ever looked up at the night sky.