Sign for the East

The hare is common in the Yangtze basin and the northern regions [of China].

C. A. S. Williams, in The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, notes that the hare “is an emblem of longevity, often depicted on porcelain, and it represents the fourth of the Twelve Terrestial Branches. This animal is reputed as deriving its origin from the vital essence of the Moon to the influence of which luminary it is consequently subject.”

The Twelve Terrestial Branches are the twelve signs of the Chinese solar zodiac which contains six wild and six domestic animals. The hare is the sign for the East which coincides with the Second Moon; and it also gives its name to The Year of the Hare.

– Excerpted from The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson (Faber and Faber, 1972), p.117.


Image: “Magpies and Hare” by Tsui Bai.