The Legend of the Rabbit in the Moon

When Japanese people look at the moon, they often imagine a rabbit. Around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, depictions of the moon, the rabbit and the mokusei (osmanthus tree) are common in Japanese art, crafts and literature. Japanese people even say that a rabbit lives inside the moon, pounding something next to a mokusei. This legend has been around for a long time. Interestingly, however, ancient Chinese people also believed that there was a rabbit on the moon.

In The Songs of Chu: Tianwen, there is a line that reads: “What is its essence, that a rabbit dwells within its belly?” This phrase is somewhat difficult to understand on its own, but during the Eastern Han dynasty, Wang Yi provided a commentary explaining it directly: “It means there is a rabbit on the moon.” According to Wang Yi’s interpretation of ancient legends, there was indeed a rabbit on the moon. In The Divine Constitution, Zhang Heng also stated: “The moon is the source of yin essence; when accumulated, it forms a beast resembling a rabbit.” In ancient Chinese mythology, a rabbit also lived on the moon. 

So why do both Japan and China have such legends? If we trace this back further, we encounter a story from Indian Buddhism.

The story of the rabbit that jumped into the fire out of kindness

In the Buddhist Jātaka Tales, there is a story titled The Rabbit Jātaka, which recounts one of the Buddha’s past lives. Long ago, the Bodhisattva was a rabbit living in the forest with a monkey, a jackal and an otter. The four animals agreed to practice kindness together. When Indra learned of this, he wished to test them. He transformed himself into a starving old man and went to the forest to ask them for food. The monkey brought fruit, the otter brought fish, and the jackal found food too. The rabbit, however, found nothing. It usually ate only grass and had nothing to offer the old man. After thinking for a moment, the rabbit told the old man that it was willing to offer its own body.

It asked its companions to gather firewood and light a fire, and then leapt into the flames. At that moment, the old man revealed his true form as Indra. It turned out that all of this had been done to test the rabbit’s compassion and kindness. Indra praised the rabbit and left its image on the moon for future generations to see.

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This is one of the origins of the “Rabbit in the Moon” in Buddhist lore. The story later spread to China. Xuanzang’s Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang also recounts the tale of three animals in India who made the ultimate sacrifice. A fox, a monkey and a rabbit lived together. One day, Indra came to test them in disguise as an old man. In the end, the rabbit leaped into the fire to make an offering of itself. Xuanzang recorded the local people’s account: “Therefore, they all say that the rabbit in the moon originated from this incident.” In other words, the locals believed that the rabbit in the moon originated from this incident. 

This story later made its way to Japan. Volume 5 of the Konjaku Monogatari Shu contains a tale titled “The Story of the Three Beasts Practising the Bodhisattva Path: The Rabbit Who Burned Itself,” whose plot closely resembles that of the self-sacrificing rabbit found in Buddhist scriptures. Unable to find food, the rabbit offered itself as an act of kindness, and in the end, Indra left its image on the moon.

Thus, the story of the moon rabbit familiar to the Japanese does indeed have a lineage that can be traced back to Indian Buddhism. However, interestingly, Japanese depictions of the moon rabbit predate the Konjaku Monogatari Shu by a considerable margin.

Asuka period: The moon already contained a rabbit and a katsura tree

An important artifact from the Asuka period is preserved at Chūgū-ji Temple in Nara: the Embroidered Hanging Scroll of the Land of Eternal Life, dating from approximately the 7th century. Originally created to depict the “Heavenly Realm of Eternal Life” (Tenshukoku), to which Prince Shōtoku was reborn after his death, it features scenes embroidered within that realm. 

Among them is a particularly distinctive depiction of the moon. The Nara National Museum’s image database labels this scene as both “Moon Rabbit, Tortoise-shaped” and “The Moon of the Heavenly Realm of Eternal Life with a Rabbit and an Osmanthus Tree.” As early as the 7th century, the Japanese had depicted both a rabbit and a cassia tree within the same moon. 

This artifact predates the Konjaku Monogatari Shu by several hundred years. In other words, by the time the Buddhist story of the “self-sacrificing rabbit” emerged in Japan, the Japanese were already depicting rabbits in their moon imagery. And it wasn’t just rabbits. There were also Katsura trees. The Chinese moon also contains both a rabbit and a cassia (katsura) tree.

The presence of a rabbit on the moon was documented very early in ancient Chinese records. The phrase “Gu Tu zai fu” (The rabbit is in the belly) in the “Tianwen” section of the “Chu Ci” was explicitly interpreted by Wang Yi as “there is a rabbit on the moon.” Zhang Heng’s Ling Xian further states that the moon “accumulates to form a beast resembling a rabbit.” 

Over time, the moon rabbit became associated with preparing elixirs. It was no longer merely an animal dwelling in the moon, but also pounded elixirs in the Moon Palace. Thus, the familiar image of the “Jade Rabbit Pounding Elixirs” took shape step by step.

There is also an osmanthus tree on the moon. In his poem Li Ping’s Konghou Melody, the Tang dynasty poet Li He wrote, “Wu Gang, unable to sleep, leans against the osmanthus tree; dewdrops fly obliquely, wetting the cold rabbit.” Wu Gang leans against the tree while the cold rabbit stands in the moonlight. In Tang dynasty poetry, the rabbit and the osmanthus tree together constituted the scene of the Moon Palace.

The ancient Chinese believed that there was a rabbit and an osmanthus tree on the moon. In seventh-century Japan, images of a rabbit and an osmanthus tree coexisting on the moon also appeared. According to Indian Buddhist tales, there is another story of a rabbit that sacrificed itself and was ultimately placed on the moon by Indra. This story later spread to China and then to Japan. Thus, the origin of the rabbit on the moon was finally understood.

Perhaps Indra left the image of the rabbit on the moon in the hope that, whenever people looked up and saw it, they would be reminded of the story of the rabbit’s self-sacrifice for the sake of others, and of the importance of compassion and good deeds.

The fact that this story spread from India to China and then to Japan, being passed down from generation to generation, is significant. When people gaze at the moon and see the rabbit, they are reminded of its devotion to others.