The Foolish Timid Rabbit: A Jataka Tale with Moral
Quick answer: The Foolish Timid Rabbit, the Daddabha Jataka, retold in full: a hare hears a fruit fall and starts a stampede that a lion stops with one question. The moral about rumours.
A hare dozing under a tree hears a thump behind him and runs off shouting that the earth is breaking up, and by noon every animal in the forest is running with him. The Foolish Timid Rabbit is the Daddabha Jataka, number 322 in the Pali collection.
The story
A hare lived under a bael tree that grew beside a palm, and he was the kind of hare who thought a great deal about what might go wrong. One afternoon he lay in the shade and let his mind wander. 'If the earth were to break apart,' he thought, 'what would become of me?' At that moment a ripe bael fruit fell from the branch above, struck a dry palm leaf, and made a sound like a small door slamming.
The hare did not look round. He was already running. 'The earth is breaking up,' he cried to the first hare he passed, and that hare ran too, and told the next, and soon a hundred thousand hares were streaming through the forest. The deer saw them and ran. The boar ran, and the buffalo, and the tigers, and at last the elephants, and the whole forest poured toward the sea.
A lion on a hilltop saw the dust and understood that if the herd reached the shore it would run straight into the water and drown. He bounded down and stood in the path and roared three times, and the stampede stopped as if it had struck a wall. 'Why are you running?' 'The earth is breaking up.' 'Who saw it?' The elephants pointed to the tigers, the tigers to the buffalo, the buffalo to the deer, the deer to the hares, and the hares, after a great deal of shuffling, pushed forward one small hare who would not meet the lion's eye.
'Where did you see it?' 'Under my tree, lord. I heard it.' 'Then show me.' The lion set the hare on his back and ran to the bael tree. There lay the palm leaf, and on it lay a bael fruit, round and yellow and quite still. The lion looked at the hare, and the hare looked at the fruit, and they went back to tell the forest, which went home, and the sea had no animals in it that day.
The moral, and what it actually means
The Jataka praises the one who investigates before believing, and warns that a crowd will follow any rumour if nobody asks where it started. In the frame the lion is the Buddha. The sharper point is in the hare's first thought. He was already imagining the end of the world before the fruit fell, and the sound only confirmed what fear had prepared.
Where the tale sits and why it has lasted
It is Jataka 322, the Daddabha Jataka, and its descendants include the Western tale of the hen who thinks the sky is falling. It has lasted because of the chain of pointing. Elephant to tiger to buffalo to deer to hare: the lion's question travels back down the whole stampede until it reaches a creature the size of a shoe.
For young readers and classrooms
A classic for the youngest listeners.
Write your own
The engine is the fear that arrives before its evidence. Give a character an anxious thought, supply a harmless coincidence that seems to confirm it, and let the panic spread by trust rather than proof. The figure who stops it should ask only where and who, and the answer should fit in one hand.
What writers can take from this
- For readers: the fruit is described only at the very end, still and yellow; the story withholds the cause until it can be looked at.
- For teachers: this is the simplest way to teach children to ask 'who saw it?' before repeating something.
- For teachers: pair it with The Jackal and the Drum from the Panchatantra, where one animal checks instead of running.
- For writers: a chain of pointing is a comic device and a moral one at the same time; let it run down the whole cast.
- For writers: the rescuer's questions should be few and dull. Curiosity, not cleverness, saves the forest.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which one anxious character mistakes an ordinary sound for a catastrophe and a whole community follows, and the person who stops them does it by asking two plain questions and walking back to the source. The source must be something you could hold in one hand.
Questions
What is the moral of The Foolish Timid Rabbit?
Check a rumour before you run with it. The hare's panic spreads through the whole forest because nobody asks where it started, until a lion does.
Which Jataka is The Foolish Timid Rabbit?
It is the Daddabha Jataka, number 322 in the Pali collection, in which the Buddha is the lion who stops the stampede.
Is The Foolish Timid Rabbit suitable for young children?
Yes, it is among the best Jataka tales for early listeners. Nobody is hurt, the stampede is exciting, and the ending is a piece of fruit on a leaf.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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