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Spain, or Further Europe 203
were making offerings to the Buddha, who was engaged in
preaching the Sacred Law. The hare bethought him that he
too must give some alms. But what had he to give ? Man
might bring costly gifts, the lion found it easy to render the
tender flesh of the fawn, birds of prey brought dainty morsels,
fish could practice no less dainty signs of devotion, even the
ant was able to drag along grains of sugar and aromatic leaves ;
but the hare, what had he .''
He
might gather the most tender
succulent shoots from the forest glades, but they were useless
even to form a couch for the Teacher. There was nothing
but his own body, and that he freely offered. The Supreme
Lord declined the sacrifice, but in remembrance of the pious
intention, placed the figure of the hare in the Moon, and there
it remains as a symbol of the Lord of Night to the present
day."
The frog, too, has a place in Indian mythology.^ At sun-
rise and at sunset, the sun near the water is likened to a frog.
Out of this notion arose a Sanskrit story. Bheki, the frog,
was once a beautiful girl, and one day when sitting near a
well she was seen by a king, who asked her to be his wife.
She consented, on condition that he should never show her
a drop of water. One day, being tired, she asked the king
for water. He forgot his promise, brought water, and Bheki
disappeared—that is to say, the sun disappeared when it
touched the water.
Lastly, it has already been shown in the earlier portion
of this work that the serpent is intimately bound up with
Lidian mythology.- It may be a coincidence, but it is surely
' For Frog legends, see Ue Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. ii., pp. 71, 72.
''
Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 389-419.