ABSTRACT
The best-known of SUC}1 legends is probably that accord-ing to vvhich the Buddha himself, in one of his rebirthsbefore attaining full Buddllahood, took the forrrl of a hare. The following account is an abridged translation, by the present writer, of this tale as rendered into German by Elsie Liiders t with certain modifications taken from the Englisll translation of the same tale as edited by Professor E. B. Cowell. 2 I t is one of the so-called Jataka stories forming part of tIle lore of Southern (Hinayana) Buddhism, which are said to have been told by Buddha himself of his o"vn earlier existences while still a Bodhisattva :l (that is to say, a being tllat is destined to develop, in a future existence, into a Buddha), and contains one of the numerous references to the belief held in many parts of the world of the connection with the }lare and the nloon, a connection which will be explained later.
