Note 91 — Chapter X · THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH

Buddha ought surely to be on the best of terms with Indra; for it is recorded in the Jātaka, No. 316, that in one of his many transmigrations Buddha had been born as a hare, which, beholding a starving Brahman, tried to roast itself, that the Brahman might eat and live. But the Brahman really was the great god Indra, who, to reward the wise hare, promised that its good deed should be made known through all ages. He, therefore, squeezed the Himalayas, and with their essence he drew on the face of the moon the figure of a hare, whence, in Hindoo works, the moon is often described as being hare-marked.