Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/81

 trembling, faded flowers, the remainder of a sacrifice.

35. 'What a contrast between the animal species, which he belongs to, and the loftiness of his self-sacrifice, the sharpness of his mind! Indeed, he confounds all such as are slow in striving for meritorious actions, deities as well as men.

36. 'Oh, how his mind is impregnated with the fragrance of a constant practice of virtues! How he loves good conduct, as he manifested by his sublime deed!'

Then, in order to glorify that extraordinary fact, and having in view the good of the world, Sakra adorned with the image of the hare as a distinctive mark both peaks on the top of the belvederes—one on his most excellent palace Vaigayanta and the other on Sudharmâ, the hall of the Devas—and likewise the disc of the moon.

37, 38. At full-moon even now that image of the hare ( a) appears in the moon's disc in the sky, as a reflected image shines in a silver mirror. From that time onward Kandra (the Moon), named also the Ornament of the Night and the Cause of the Brilliancy of the Night-waterlilies, is famous in the world as the Hare-marked ( a).

And the others, the otter, the jackal, and the ape, disappeared thereafter (from the earth) and arrived in the world of the Devas, thanks to their possessing such a holy friend.

So then the practice of charity according to their power by Great Beings, even when in the state of beasts, is a demonstrated fact; who, then, being a man, should not be charitable? [Moreover, this too is to be propounded: 'Even beasts are honoured by the pious for their attachment to virtues; for this reason one must be intent on virtues.']