done well to come to me. To-day I will give such a gift as has never before been given. Since you are 'virtuous,' and will not destroy life (willingly or wittingly), go, father, collect wood, and when you've made a clear fire of them then come and tell me. I'll give myself away as a gift, and will fall into the midst of the glowing embers; and when my body is roasted thou shalt eat of my flesh and endeavour to walk in the path of righteousness." In the course of conversation he spake the following gâtha:—
"The hare is poor, no sesamum has he,
Nor beans nor rice; full bare the larder seems.
Myself I give thee then, me take and roast,
And eat thy fill and haunt the forest wild."
When Indra heard that speech of his, he created by his own divine power a heap of live coals and told the Bodhisat that all was ready. The hare raised itself from the grass, approached the fire, and said, "If there are any insects adhering to the tips of my fur let them not be killed." Thrice did he shake his limbs, and then he presented his whole body as an alms to the brahman. Springing upon the heap of wood like a flamingo, he fell with cheerful heart into the heap of glowing coals. But the fire was not able to make hot even a single hair on the body of the Bodhisat; he was as cool as if he had entered the regions of frost and snow. Then he addressed Indra, "O brahman, this fire you've made is very cool, and is not able to cause a single hair on my body to become hot. How's that?" "O wise hare, I am not a brahman, I am Indra, and have come here to put thy virtue to the test." "O Indra, do thou stand there awhile. Were all the world combined to test me by almsgiving, assuredly they would not find me unwilling to give." Thus saying, he uttered a mighty shout of exultation. Then spake Indra to him, "O wise hare, let thy good deed be made known during the whole kalpa[1] (i.e. as long as the world lasts)." Then he squeezed the mountain, and with its essence he drew on the surface of the moon the figure of a hare. After addressing the Bodhisat he took the hare from the fire, and in that forest, even in the very thicket (where he used to pass the night), he set him (the hare)
- ↑ "The sign of the hare in the moon will last the whole kalpa."—Jâtaka, No. 20 (English translation, p. 235).
