Sampati and Jatayu race to the sun

Classical

A burnt-winged eagle supplied the first location of Lanka.

The monkeys were at the end of their strength. They had searched for Sita far and wide and found nothing, and they were starving and ready to give up and die. They were sitting at the foot of the Vindhya mountains when a huge old eagle, Sampati, who had been sitting there, spoke to them, weeping, in a booming voice.

He told them who he was. Jatayu, the vulture who had died fighting Ravana for Sita, was his younger brother. Sampati was old and had no wings left, so he could do nothing to avenge him. Then the monkeys heard how it happened.

Long ago, when Indra was killing the demon Vritra, the two brothers had a contest. They would race each other up toward the sun. They flew higher and higher. At midday the sun's heat began to scorch Jatayu, and Sampati, seeing his brother weakening, spread his own wings over him to shield him. The heat burned Sampati's wings away and he fell onto the Vindhya range. He never learned what became of Jatayu.

The crown prince Angada asked the obvious question: did Sampati know where Ravana was, near or far, so they could keep searching? Sampati said that he could not fight, but he could help with words. He had seen the lower worlds, the three strides of Vishnu, the wars of gods and demons, and the churning of the ocean for the nectar.

Then he told them what he had seen. He had watched Ravana carrying off a young woman in ochre silk and ornaments, who cried out for Rama and Lakshmana and threw her jewelry down as she struggled. Because she called on Rama, Sampati concluded she was Sita. He identified Ravana: the son of Vishravas and brother of Kubera, who ruled Lanka. Lanka lay a hundred yojanas across the ocean, built by Vishvakarma, with golden doors, balconies, many-storied palaces and a dazzling rampart. Sita was being held in Ravana's inner apartments, guarded by rakshasis.

He gave directions. The monkeys had to cross a hundred yojanas of ocean from the northern shore, and from the southern shore they would see Lanka, with the sea around it. Sampati predicted that they would succeed and come back.

He added something about eagle sight. Birds fly at different levels, he said, from sparrows at the lowest through fruit-eaters, wading birds, hawks and vultures to swans, and the highest belongs to the line of Garuda, which includes eagles. Eagles see up to a hundred yojanas. That is how he could see Sita and Lanka from where he sat. He was also a little sorry for himself: eagles have to range far for food, while a rooster finds its food at its feet, and his son had not yet brought food that day.

Then he made a request. He asked the monkeys to carry him to the ocean so he could offer water for his dead brother. They did, and then brought him back. Gladdened by the news of Sita, Ravana and Lanka, they resumed the search.

This is the moment when the search turns from hope into a plan. Sampati cannot walk or fly, but he is the first person in the story to tell the monkeys where Sita is and how far. It gives Hanuman a destination, which is the next chapter's business. And it connects the quest to the sad story of Jatayu, whose death opened the search, and to the brother Sampati has lost.

The page's notes add a family tree for Ravana: Vishravas had four wives, and the children include Kubera, Ravana, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana and Shurpanakha.

Who: Sampati, Jatayu, Sita

Bound to

Jatayu's lineage: Kashyapa, Vinata, Aruna causes

Jatayu fights Ravana and dies mirror

Places: Vindhya, Mahendra coast

Where this comes from

valmiki · Valmiki Ramayana, Kishkindha Kanda (valmikiramayan.net translation) sarga 58
read for this telling · valmikiramayan.net Valmiki Ramayana Kishkindha Kanda sarga 58

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