FILE PHOTO: A Tang Dynasty bronze mirror featuring a depiction of the mythical moon palace on its back, housed in the Shanghai Museum

The Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, is a holiday centered around the moon. Nearly all of its customs—moon-gazing, moon worship, eating mooncakes, playing games or socializing beneath the moon, and sharing stories about it—are connected to this celestial body. The most valued tradition of the festival, family reunions, is also linked to the moon, as the moon represents unity in Chinese culture. This deep cultural connection to the moon dates back millennia. Over 2,000 years ago, the great poet Qu Yuan pondered in his poem “Questions to Heaven”: Why is the moon able to disappear and then be reborn, to darken and then grow bright again? And why is there a gutu in its belly? Traditionally, the gutu was thought to be a rabbit, though scholar Wen Yiduo, suggested it may have actually referred to a toad.

As more myths surrounding the moon emerged, ancient Chinese imagination began to populate it with not only a toad and a rabbit but also figures like Chang’e and Wu Gang. As the Mid-Autumn Festival is most closely associated with the moon, these mythological elements annually come alive in various art forms, including painting, poetry, and sculpture. Even today, we can sense the ancient reverence for the festival and the moon through cultural relics.

The toad and the rabbit

Research suggests that in ancient Chinese beliefs, the first to “land on the moon” were the toad and the rabbit. The concept of these lunar animals can be traced back to the Warring States Period, as suggested by the poem “Questions to Heaven.” In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong mentioned a widespread idea in his work Lunheng that a three-legged crow inhabits the sun, while a rabbit and a toad reside in the moon. This idea is also reflected in the T-shaped silk painting unearthed from the Han tomb at Mawangdui, Changsha.

The earliest record of the jade rabbit pounding medicine on the moon comes from a Han Dynasty folk song: There is a rabbit inside the moon, pure white like jade, hence it is called the “jade rabbit.” The jade rabbit is depicted holding a jade pestle, kneeling on the ground as it pounds medicine into pills. According to legend, consuming these pills grants immortality. The rabbit pounding the elixir of immortality may symbolize the moon’s association with eternal life, as its phases —waxing and waning—mirror the cycle of life and death.

In Han Dynasty depictions, the jade rabbit often appears alongside Queen Mother of the West, who governs the elixir of immortality. It seems fitting that the jade rabbit would serve as her little assistant, helping to grind the elixir. The jade rabbit not only appears in Han folk songs and stone carvings, but also features in the classic Journey to the West. However, in this novel, the rabbit sneaks out of the Moon Palace and transforms into a beautiful princess in an attempt to seduce Monk Xuanzang, with the intention of becoming an immortal faster by “jumping the line” rather than following the long path of spiritual cultivation. In the end, it is subdued and sent back to the Moon Palace to resume its duties.

Beyond China, myths about moon-dwelling rabbits also appeared in ancient India, Persia, the Americas, and even Africa. Why did so many ancient cultures envision animals such as rabbits on the moon? The answer might be simpler than expected—these animals were likely the ancient people’s intuitive interpretations of the moon’s surface shadows. To the naked eye, the shadows on the moon roughly divide into two major sections: the larger left side resembles a toad with outstretched limbs, while the right part looks like a running rabbit. The widespread myths about the moon and rabbit may not need to be explained through diffusion but rather may stem from shared imaginative associations when people gazed at the moon.

Another possible explanation is that toads and rabbits, with their strong reproductive abilities, symbolized vitality. In particular, the toad was viewed as a long-lived creature. The ancient Taoist text Baopuzi regarded both the toad and the white rabbit as symbols of longevity. In the ancient mind, the waxing and waning moon was also an emblem of immortality. These connections likely sparked the ancient imagination.

Chang’e and the moon

The earliest known account of “Chang’e flying to the moon” comes from a bamboo slip text titled Guizang, unearthed from a Qin tomb in Jiangling, Hubei, in 1993. This account simply states that Chang’e stole the elixir of immortality and fled to the moon. In the Western Han era, Huainanzi added the figure of Houyi to the myth: “Houyi obtained the elixir of immortality from Queen Mother of the West, but Chang’e stole it and fled to the moon. Houyi was greatly frustrated for he did not know the formula for immortality.” When it came to the Eastern Han Dynasty, Gao You’s commentary on Huainanzi clarified that Chang’e was Houyi’s wife, establishing the core narrative that forms the foundation of Chang’e myths today.

The myths involving Chang’e and the jade rabbit became popular motifs in ancient Chinese bronze mirrors, reflecting the deep social influence of Taoist culture. From emperors to commoners, people across society were fascinated by alchemy, immortality, and transcending mortal existence. A Tang Dynasty bronze mirror, currently housed in the Shanghai Museum, has a diameter of 19 centimeters and features a vivid depiction of the mythical Moon Palace on its back. In the upper left corner, Chang’e is shown gracefully flying in the air, holding a square plaque inscribed with the characters “Great Fortune” (大吉) in her left hand, while her right hand holds a tray of fruit. Below her, the jade rabbit holds a mortar and pestle, while to the upper right, an osmanthus tree stands, with a leaping toad beneath its branches. Below the turtle-shaped knob at the center is a pool of water with rippling waves, above which the character “water” (水) is marked. This mirror reflects the rising status of Chang’e in the Moon Palace, symbolizing her elevated position in popular imagination as she becomes the central figure, surpassing both the jade rabbit and the toad in importance.

‘China’s Sisyphus’

By the Western Han Dynasty, the osmanthus tree had already appeared in depictions of the moon, evidenced by the murals unearthed from that period. But the story of Wu Gang’s perpetual attempt to cut down the osmanthus tree gained widespread popularity later, likely during the Tang Dynasty. According to the Tang Dynasty book Youyang Zazu, Wu Gang was a Taoist practitioner who sought immortality but lacked focus and discipline in his training. Angered by his inconsistent efforts, the gods punished him by sending him to the moon, where he was given the impossible task of cutting down a self-healing osmanthus tree. Perhaps for the ancients, the tree’s magical ability to heal itself may have symbolized the moon’s mythical power of perpetual death and rebirth. Wu Gang’s ceaseless labor bears striking similarities to the myth of Sisyphus in ancient Greek mythology. Both figures from these two ancient civilizations are condemned to cyclical, futile fates, which is an intriguing parallel.