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The Rabbit in the Moon In the Bhagavad Gita (XI:39), the King
Arjuna praises the might and majesty of the God Krishna in the following words: “You are the Wind God, the God of Death,
the God of Fire, the Lord of the Ocean, a Rabbit….” A Rabbit??! The actual Sanskrit word is
“Śaśānka” or “the gray one”, which refers to a rabbit, but what
does this term mean? In the culture of Many cultures have seen pictures in the
patterns of light and dark on the Moon’s surface. These varying shades of gray
are caused by light reflecting off of the mountains, plains and depressions on
the moon’s surface. (See Figure 1) The darker gray color is generally from the
depressions which are called ‘Mare’ from the Latin word for ‘sea’ although
these ‘seas’ never held water.
Figure 1 The Moon’s Surface In the West, they refer to the “Man in
the Moon”; the Aztecs saw a Woman; and the ancient Indians visualized a Rabbit.
In Figure 2 below, the Man can be seen
at Moonrise, the Woman at the Zenith, and the Rabbit at Moonset.
Figure 2 The images seen in the moon at different
times
Figure 3 The images in the moon pointed out Source of images:
National Geographic Map of the Moon Other useful
maps for Eurasian studies: Afghanistan/Pakistan,
Caspian Region, Middle East, China, Russia, Asia, Europe See all of their other excellent
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