There is a myth in ancient India about a traveler who was tired and hungry and was about to die on the way. But at this moment, he encountered three wild beasts: a bear, a wolf, and a rabbit.

There is a myth in ancient India. It tells of a traveler who was tired and hungry and was about to die on the way. But at this moment, he encountered three beasts: a bear, a wolf, and a rabbit. The animals kindly took care of him. The bear catches fish for the traveler, and the wolf brings him fruit. But only the rabbit is empty-handed, because it is the weakest and has nothing. However, just as the traveler was raising a fire to grill the fish, the rabbit jumped towards the fire, jumped in and roasted himself. The traveler was moved and revealed his true form. It turned out that he was the King of Gods, Sakyamuni. In order to repay the sacrifice of the rabbit, he raised the rabbit into the moon. From then on, there was Moon Rabbit .

Rabbits have a special place in Buddhism and are also one of the so-called "four auspicious signs of harmony".

This story has very distinct Indian characteristics. The sacrifice of the rabbit is similar to the Buddhist " immeasurable charity". In fact, Buddhism later absorbed this myth, and even said that the rabbit was the previous life of Sakyamuni. The spirit of this story It is also the same as his "sacrifice to feed tigers" in later generations.

It is worth noting that there is also a complicated connotation behind this story. First of all, the name of the country "India" comes from the moon. Moreover, the legend of the Moon Rabbit is not limited to India. Needless to say, China, which has had exchanges with India since ancient times, the interesting thing is that the legend of the Moon Rabbit also exists in America on the other side of the ocean.

In the ancient legend of the North American Indians , there were originally two suns in the sky. The two suns took turns lighting up the world, but in doing so, humans and animals were too tired to rest. In the end, they had to choose a little rabbit to negotiate with the gods. Unexpectedly, the gods grabbed the rabbit and threw it into one of the suns, and the brightness immediately dropped. Then there was the moon, and this rabbit became the Moon Rabbit.

Although it is said that the Yin people once traveled eastward to America, it is still difficult to bring the legend of the Moon Rabbit there. Therefore, to explain the truth of the Moon Rabbit legend, we can only start with the rabbit itself. But do people really know these little rabbits that we have grown up with?

Nowadays, rabbits can be said to be one of the common domestic animals. If you don’t read the book carefully, you may not know that it does not belong to the Six Animals. Yes, there were only hares in ancient China. The difference between this hare and our common domestic rabbits is not just the difference in name. Although they are all rabbits, the ancestor of domestic rabbits is the cave rabbit. Note, not a hare. The burrow rabbit gets its name because it often digs holes for itself. Because of this, its newborn cubs are smooth and hairless, as are domestic rabbits. Because just stay underground. But hare's newborn cubs are furry. Because hares don't make nests, they have to run around after they are born. Being hairless is so inconvenient. Because I noticed the difference between the two types of rabbits. Therefore, the names of rabbit and hare are divided into two in English. The former is rabbit and the latter is hare.

Hare

It is now generally believed that the rabbit is not from China, but its hometown is in Europe, Spain or France to be precise. Later, the rabbit was domesticated into a domestic rabbit, and then came to China via the Silk Road, and then multiplied.

Before the Han Dynasty, rabbits in China were basically hares, and they were also the focus of hunting. At that time, animal husbandry was not yet developed, and hunting was also an important source of food. Therefore, in addition to the "six animals", there are also "six beasts". The rabbit is one of the six animals.

There are at least three poems in the Book of Songs related to hares. That is, "Rabbit Place", "Rabbit Love", " Gourd Leaf ", such as "Gourd Leaf":

banners and gourd leaves, which are harvested and prospered.
If a gentleman has wine, he can taste it as he pleases.
has the head of a rabbit, and the fire of a cannon...

describes the joyful scene of a hunter hunting a hare and using it for drinking. It has the charm of the rabbit head hot pot restaurant in Chengdu today. But it should be noted that the two gentlemen holding rabbit heads by the fire, roasting and frying them to drink with wine, were not ordinary people, but nobles. Hunting hares can be said to be a hobby of nobles all over the world, whether in the East or the West. Ordinary people at that time could only "wait and wait". It can be seen that even if a commoner picks up a rabbit, it seems like he has made a fortune.

Rabbit head can be said to be a delicacy with a long history.

Someone may want to ask a question: "That's not right. The idiom has '瀹Rabbit三burrow', which tells the story of Lord Mengchang during the Warring States Period. It means that at that time, we already knew that rabbits burrowed underground. How can we say that rabbits burrow in the ground? Did it come from abroad? "

The legend of "Three Cunning Rabbits"

Of course, this is still controversial. Some people say that the ancients remembered it wrong, and some say that there might really be cave rabbits in ancient China. It’s up to you to believe that. Just like when I explained the tiger chapter

Australia’s rabbit disaster

so the white rabbit dream of Fujian businessmen was shattered. Rabbits that breed like crazy quickly turn from pets into food. Many people went bankrupt. Fortunately, rabbits are good-looking and don't eat anything except plants. Only in this way will he not end up like a mouse, with everyone shouting and beating him.

The reason why the rabbit is associated with the moon is mostly because of its fecundity. Because it can give birth almost a month after mating, it triggers people's associations. So much so that the ancients believed that all rabbits in the world are female rabbits, and the only male rabbit is in the moon palace. As long as the female rabbits in the world look at the moon, they will become pregnant, and the baby rabbits will spit out from their mouths.

These ideas are of course not true. However, it is indeed difficult to distinguish between male and female rabbits. That's why there is this sentence in "Mulan Ci": " Two rabbits are walking next to each other on the ground. How can they tell whether I am male or female? "

Although rabbits are small and weak, rabbits still have their advantages. For example, running very fast. It is said that it can reach a speed of 70 kilometers per hour, which ranks seventh among all animals. Not only that, when running, rabbits will consciously sway from side to side, and even run in false directions to confuse their tracks and prevent natural enemies from pursuing them. This is the so-called " confusing ".

Sometimes there is no way to escape, and rabbits are targeted by natural enemies high in the sky, such as eagles. At this time, the rabbit will still pretend to be dead, and when the eagle rushes down to attack, it will suddenly fight back and attack the eagle with its strong hind legs. This is the so-called " rabbit kicking off the eagle ". Sometimes it can really drive away enemies.

Rabbit kicking the eagle

Although it has a great origin, why the rabbit is in this position among the twelve zodiac animals has always been very troublesome. Because the rabbit's combat effectiveness is really too weak. Ranked last in the zodiac, but actually ranked behind the extremely powerful tiger, it is difficult for people not to suspect that there is something fishy in it.

Therefore, some people say that the so-called "Jade Rabbit" is actually " to dodder ", which is also the alias of tiger, so the two are related. It is also said that it is because rabbits and tigers are both wild animals. In fact, if it is clear that the tiger represents "death", then the rabbit, which represents "reproduction", is just right in this position. In fact, there is no place more suitable for rabbits than the Mao position. Because its direction is due east, which is the wood position in the yin and yang five elements, and it is also the "Shaoyang" that represents life. The sun and moon rise from this position every day. Therefore, the palace where the ancient prince lived was called "East Palace" because it represented vitality and hope.

In Chinese mythology, the most famous rabbit is of course the one in the Moon Palace. Although she is a female in " Journey to the West ". But the idea of ​​it being male has a much longer history. Even the great writer Han Yu humorously said that it " steals Chang'e and rides a toad into the moon", just like a playboy.

The Legend of the Moon Rabbit

In Chinese mythology, the myths related to rabbits are relatively thin compared to other members of the twelve zodiac animals. But there are still some. Traditionally, the rarest rabbit must be the "Red Rabbit". But this is not Guan Yu's red rabbit horse, but a real red rabbit. Ancient people believed that seeing it was the best proof of good fortune in the world.

This is not necessarily superstitious. It is said that red rabbits do exist in nature, but they live in faraway Africa. But it was also possible that it was brought to the East via caravans. However, all this must be in an open and peaceful season. Otherwise, there will be chaos and chaos, and officials and bandits will collude. Who would want to die for carrying a jade? Only during times of rule, the country was open and even had the power to crack down on bandits on the trade routes. Only goods from distant places can reach China.In this way, the appearance of the African red rabbit can really symbolize the prosperity of the country. Such situations are actually rare in Chinese history.

" Shan Hai Jing " also records a kind of "-eared mouse ", which is said to look like a mouse, but has a rabbit's head and can fly on its tail. In fact, rabbits and mice are very closely related. Because they both have extra-large incisors, rabbits were previously classified as rodents. But later I felt that they were still different, so I separated the lagomorphs from them.

However, there are still some magical animals between rabbits and mice, such as " pika ". It looks like a mouse or a rabbit and lives on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It built its own nest in the natural stone crevices of the mountain for resting, hence the name "Stone Rabbit".

Plateau pika

But some other guys insisted on coming in. They are small birds on the plateau. In terms of scientific names, they can be divided into ground crows and snow sparrows. They also need shelter from the elements. As a result, both parties were forced to live together. This incident was seen by the ancients with great imagination, and they even thought that they were the same kind of creatures and called them "bird mice". They believed that the male was a bird and the female was a mouse, which also reflected the changes of yin and yang. Therefore, the place where "birds and mice" were first observed is called "the mountain where birds and mice share the same cave", or "birds and mice mountain" for short. The Weihe River, one of the most famous rivers in China, originates here.

The Wei River flows into the Yellow River. The ancients believed that the upper reaches of the Yellow River was Kunlun, where the gods lived. There are very precious metal resources under Kunlun. They are called "The Heroes of Hardware" or "Red Fire Copper". Back then, Huangdi took resources from here and forged magic weapons to defeat Chi You and dominate the world. There is also a kind of monster living in Kunlun Mountain. This animal looks like a rabbit, except that the male has golden fur and the female has fur as white as snow. It likes to dig up the ground and eat the metal deposits underground. Other creatures do not disappear after eating iron, but this strange rabbit stores the metal in its kidneys. Hence the name "iron gallbladder kidney".

Later, for some unknown reason, during the Spring and Autumn Period, two iron gallbladders came to make their nests in the arsenal of the State of Wu, thousands of miles apart. As a result, when the Wu people came to pick up weapons, they found that the storehouse was already full of broken halberds and broken swords.

There was an expert in the Wu palace who discovered a key point and found the iron gall kidney. He killed them and took out their kidneys and presented them to the King of Wu. King Wu obtained this treasure and had it made into a sword by a famous swordsmith, which became the famous Ganjiang and Moye throughout the ages. Later came the story of the eyebrow ruler. Although it is generally accepted that the reason why this pair of swords are so powerful is that the souls of the swordsmith and his wife are incorporated into them, it can also be said that these two swords would not exist without these strange rabbits.

Ganjiang·Moxie

From here, it seems that rabbits are still very useful as raw materials. It’s no wonder that in the Japanese comic “GS God of War”, the rabbit among the twelve shikigami is set as a guy who fights with two swords.

is worth mentioning as well as armadillo. In fact, many people don't know that it is also a mythical beast in the "Book of Mountains and Seas". The scriptures say that it is shaped like a rabbit, but has the eyes and mouth of an owl, and a tail like a snake. It will fall asleep when it sees people. Later, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, North American creatures entered the Chinese people's vision. When seeing an animal like Armadillo, the translator should be a scholar who is familiar with "The Classic of Mountains and Seas". It feels very similar to an armadillo. So the name "Armadillo" was given to it. In fact, the shape of a rabbit is a bit expressive, it can be said that it has a snake's tail, and "it sleeps when seeing people" can be interpreted as this animal hugging itself into a ball. But the owl's eyes and mouth are very different. But that doesn’t stop this from being a divine translation. Many netizens also regard it as evidence that the Chinese have reached America in ancient times.

The armadillo in "Qing Palace Beast Book"

In the evolutionary history of rabbits, America is really an important node, so it seems to be much more impressive. In addition to the previously mentioned story of the rabbit in the moon. There are also Indians in North America who regard the white rabbit as the creator god and call it "Manabozo". It killed the monsters that threatened humans and taught humans to use fire.The Chichua people of South America believe that the Rabbit God is the king of beasts, leading other beasts to create land on the water using sand collected from the water, and turning animals into humans. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Wipwawet was a human body with the head of a rabbit.

Why are rabbits the most popular among these ethnic groups? Perhaps these beliefs are still related to eating rabbit meat. Different nations have different concepts of life. Primitive societies were also very particular about food. Sometimes they even believed that God would give his original body to people as food in order to get a new body. The Indians in South America pay attention to human sacrifice, which means sacrificing the strongest and smartest person in the tribe to the gods, and the person being sacrificed is very happy because he thinks he can get a new life. Rabbits probably fed many Indians, so they were worshiped as gods.

But in Western European countries, things are a little different. Like the Chinese, Christians believe that rabbits symbolize fertility and resurrection, but also represent vigilance and escape from temptation. In Central European Germany and Austria , the legend of "Jackalope" is spread. That is, a rabbit with antlers on its head. It is said that this kind of rabbit usually lives in the forests of Northern Europe, but in 1932, an American writer named "Herrick" also discovered it in Wyoming and collected specimens, which later developed into a festival there. But some people suspect that this is just an ordinary hare with a viral tumor on its head, but paleontologists have discovered ancient horned rats in the local area.

Jackalope

Of course, the rabbit family is not invincible. The "Miraj" in West Asia, which can also be called the "One-horned Rabbit", is one of them. It is said that it is produced on an unnamed island in the Indian Ocean and grows With yellow fur and a spiral horn, it is faster than deer and antelopes, and is strong enough to kill wild boars and bison. This kind of rabbit can also be called the "King of Rabbits".

Now for most people. For the Chinese, rabbits are a delicacy. Of course, their fur also has some uses. In addition to making clothes, in traditional culture it can also be used to make pens among the four treasures of the study. Interestingly, in the current animation industry, white rabbits have already been used. It has been given a new connotation and has become a synonym for our great CPLA. Fortunately, Ma She did not research its origin like me before, otherwise it is very likely that "That Year of the Rabbit" would not be available. In fact, this is the case. It has happened countless times in cultural history. I wonder how people will look at