Easter Ritual and the Cultural Practices - Coursework Example

Like kids on the beach who trace out animal figures at the rims of intensely lit cumulus clouds, not everybody agrees on how the rabbit is symbolized. Some see a frontal image, the rabbit's ears delineated by the Seas of Fecundity and Nectar, his round face marked by the Sea of Tranquility, site of the first lunar lander; the Seas of Serenity and Showers comprise the rodent's round body. Others view a rabbit in profile—the Sea of Humor and the Sea of Clouds mark the front legs, Nectar and Fecundity the back legs; the huge Sea of Storms is its head, the bright crater Kepler marks an eye, and swept-back ears are outlined by the Bay of Rainbows.

But still, the figure is a rabbit. The Ethnographic accounts & Understanding of the Easter Ritual and the Cultural Practices How did a rabbit get onto the face of the moon? One Sanskrit text tells the tale of a fox, a coot (waterfowl), a monkey, and a hare. The four traveled together as hermits, promising never to kill a living thing. The god Sakkria tested their faith by emerging to each of them in the form of a Brahmin (a member of the highest Hindu caste) begging for alms. The monkey right away brought him a bunch of mangoes plucked from a close-by orchard; the coot presented him a row of trout left at the riverside by a strange fisherman; the fox brought a pot of milk forgotten by a herdsman.

When the Brahmin came near the last of the hermits, the hare responded, “I eat only grass which certainly can be of no use to you.” “But if you are a real hermit you can present me your own flesh,” replied the Brahmin. The hare consented and the Brahmin built a cooking fire into which the hare would jump. “That will save me the difficulty of killing you and dressing your flesh,” said the Brahmin (Matteker, Philip, 1989). Again the rabbit permitted. He climbed to the top of a rock above the fire and leaped off.

But just before he reached the flames they were astoundingly extinguished. The Brahmin returned to the form of the god Sakkria, took the hare in his arms, and drew its figure in the moon so that every living thing all over in the world might see and remember this noble character.