32. 'It is my duty to give in charity, and my heart is inclined to do so, and in a person like thee I have met with a worthy guest; such an opportunity for giving cannot be easily obtained. Let then my charity not be useless, inasmuch as it depends on thee.'
So saying the Great-minded One persuaded him, and after showing him by his salutation his esteem, his respect, and his hospitable mind—
33. Then, with the utmost gladness, like one desirous of wealth on suddenly beholding a treasure, he threw himself in that blazing fire, as the supreme hamsa plunges into a pond with laughing lotuses.
When the chief of the Devas saw this deed, he was affected with the highest admiration. Reassuming his own shape, he praised the Great Being with words both agreeable to the mind and the ears and preceded by a shower of celestial flowers. Then with his delicate hands of a rich lustre, like that of the petal of the white lotus, and embellished with their fingers resplendent like jewel ornaments, he took him up himself and showed him to the Celestials. 'Behold, ye Devas, inhabitants of the celestial residence, behold and rejoice at this astonishing deed, this heroic exploit of this Great Being.
34. 'Oh, how he has given away his body without hesitation to-day, to be charitable to his guest! But the fickle-minded[57] are not even able to give up, without 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 (sasa) 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 (Sasâṅka).
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.