ABSTRACT
The Egyptian depiction of the sun-god Ra with the head of a hawk has been explained as deriving from the concept of the sun moving across the sky in the manner of a bird’s flight. In the Chinese tradition a distinction must be drawn between the portrayal of a bird as a symbol of the sun and the story of the three birds who provided the Queen Mother of the West with her needs; as will be seen, both of these ideas merge with, or develop into that of a three-legged bird or crow. The Buddhist tradition of India tells of the hare practising the ideal of selfless immolation for the sake of others. There is no specific account in Chinese literature which explains the presence of the hare in the moon; indeed, the question that is put in the T’ien-wen poem of the Ch’u tz’u shows that the animal formed a fit subject for a riddle.
