सम्पातिना लङ्कानिवेदनम्

Addressed in these pitiful words by the monkeys who had given up on life, the vulture answered in a loud voice, his eyes filling with tears. The tears show an old bird's love for his brother, and the loud voice shows that, though his body had grown weak, his power of speech had not. "Monkeys," he said, "the one you say was killed in battle by mighty Rāvaṇa was my younger brother Jaṭāyu." Then he confessed his own weakness: "Old and wingless as I am, I must bear even this news, for today I have no strength to avenge my brother." "I must bear it" is itself the proof of his helplessness: whoever cannot retaliate can only endure. In three verses the poet sets up both the memory of the feud and the old bird's powerlessness, for all the help he gives in this sarga rests on that powerlessness.

Then Sampāti remembered the past. "Long ago, when Indra had killed Vṛtra, my brother and I, both eager to win, flew up towards the blazing sun with its garland of rays. We filled the path of the sky and sped swiftly heavenwards, but when the sun reached the zenith, Jaṭāyu began to fail." Where the heat was fiercest, the younger brother's strength gave out and the elder's love grew. "Seeing my brother tormented by the sun's rays and utterly overcome, out of love I covered him with my own wings." Jaṭāyu was saved, but Sampāti's feathers were burned. "With my feathers burnt away I fell on the Vindhya, best of monkeys, and living here I have never had news of my brother." The story of an elder brother who burned himself to save the younger is the root of all the help that follows. His burnt wings are both his bondage and his greatness, and with this story the monkeys' suspicion vanished at once. The poet also hints, without saying it outright, at the pride of the two brothers who set out to chase the sun, and at its price: the elder's lifelong crippling.

When Sampāti had spoken thus of his brother, the wise crown prince Aṅgada answered him. His reply was very careful: he neither believed nor disbelieved, but framed it in three conditions. "If you are Jaṭāyu's brother, and if you have heard what I told you, and if you know where that rākṣasa lives, then tell us. If you know whether that short-sighted, vile rākṣasa Rāvaṇa is near or far, tell us." Calling Rāvaṇa short-sighted points out his folly: whoever carries off another's wife invites his own destruction. His questions come in two parts, first about who Sampāti is, then about where Rāvaṇa lives, and this order shows his skill; the old bird's answer follows the same order. Then Jaṭāyu's elder brother, of great splendour, spoke words worthy of himself — of his family, his age and his knowledge — and gladdened the monkeys.

"My wings are burnt and my strength is gone, monkeys; I am only a vulture. Yet by words alone I shall do Rāma the greatest service." That is the lesson at the centre of the sarga: one who cannot help with his body can still help with his words, and "alone" matters, for he offers his very limitation as his gift. To show what he knew he said: "I know the worlds of Varuṇa, Viṣṇu's three strides, the battles of the gods and asuras, and the churning of the ocean for the nectar." These four famous events of ancient times are what his great age has witnessed, and they establish his authority. "This work of Rāma's is what I must do first, though old age has taken my vigour and my breath is failing." Old as he was, he did not abandon his duty but put it first. Then he told what he had seen: "I saw a beautiful young woman, adorned with every ornament, being carried off by the wicked Rāvaṇa. That proud lady was crying out 'Rāma, Rāma!' and 'Lakṣmaṇa!', throwing off her ornaments and struggling with her whole body." Crying out, casting away her jewels, twisting her limbs — three forms of her resistance; and the jewels she threw down are the very ones the monkeys saw fall on Ṛṣyamūka, which ties this sarga to what came before. "Her fine silk garment shone like sunlight on a mountain peak; against that dark rākṣasa it gleamed like lightning against a cloud" — the image shows both the rākṣasa's blackness and Sītā's brightness. "Because she was calling on Rāma, I believe she was Sītā. Now listen, and I will tell you where that rākṣasa lives." Here, for the first time, the monkeys have direct evidence of Sītā; before, they had only guesses.

"A rākṣasa named Rāvaṇa, the very son of Viśravas and brother of Vaiśravaṇa, Kubera, rules the city of Laṅkā." Naming his father and brother, Sampāti fixes Rāvaṇa's family in his listeners' minds. "On an island a full hundred yojanas out in the ocean from here stands that lovely city of Laṅkā, built by Viśvakarman. It is beautifully made, with bright gates of jāmbūnada gold, golden platforms and great golden mansions, and surrounded by a mighty wall the colour of the sun. There lives Vaidehī, wretched, dressed in silk, shut up in Rāvaṇa's inner apartments and closely guarded by rākṣasīs." With the single word "wretched" the poet tells her state: she is alive but not happy, and so grief and hope mingle in the monkeys. The description of the city begins with its gates and ends with its wall, with Sītā placed in the middle — gold outside, sorrow within. "You will see Maithilī, King Janaka's daughter, in Laṅkā, which the sea guards on every side." The hundred-yojana ocean is Laṅkā's great defence; without it the city would not be impregnable. "When you have reached the far side of the ocean, a full hundred yojanas, and gained its southern shore, you will see Rāvaṇa. Go there quickly, monkeys, and show your valour at once." He lays out the route step by step — crossing the ocean, reaching the southern shore, seeing Rāvaṇa — and with "show your valour" he gives them not only news but courage. This brief picture of the golden city is the seed of the long description of Laṅkā in the Sundara Kāṇḍa. With it the reason for the monkeys' fast has disappeared, and the task Sugrīva set now seems close to completion.

"With the eye of knowledge I see that you will find Sītā and come back," he said, and then he described the six paths of the sky in turn. "The first path belongs to the kuliṅga birds and others that live on grain. The second belongs to crows and others that eat offerings, and to birds that live on the fruit of trees. The bhāsas travel the third, with the krauñcas and ospreys. Hawks travel the fourth and vultures the fifth. The sixth belongs to the swans, strong and valiant, beautiful and young; but the course of Garuḍa, son of Vinatā, is higher than all." The list runs from low to high, from the grain-eaters below to Garuḍa above, painting the layers of the sky. It is a rare picture of ancient lore about the air, and it is not there for ornament but as proof: "I know the ways of the birds." "All of us are descended from Garuḍa, bulls among monkeys. But a shameful deed was done, and because of it we became eaters of flesh." Having named his lineage, Sampāti also confesses the reason for his race's fall, a shameful deed of the past; far from hiding this self-reproach, he uses it to prove his honesty. "And I must repay that feud against my brother. Even from here I can see Rāvaṇa and Jānakī, for we too have the divine sight of Garuḍa's race." "Divine sight" makes it clear that his far-seeing is a divine gift, not an exaggeration.

"So, monkeys, by the strength our food gives us and by our very nature we can always see a full hundred yojanas and beyond." The strength of food and the nature of his kind together make such sight possible. "By nature our livelihood lies far away, while birds that fight with their feet, like cocks, find theirs at the foot of a tree" — a contrasting example: those whose sight is short make their living close at hand. With these reasons he made his words believable. "Find some way to cross the salt sea. When you have reached Vaidehī, you will go home with your purpose achieved. Now I want you to carry me to the sea, Varuṇa's home, so that I can offer the water-libation to my great brother who has gone to heaven." Then those mighty monkeys carried Sampāti, with his burnt wings, to a spot on the shore of the lord of rivers, and when that lord of birds had offered the water, they brought him back to his own place. Helping with the libation earned the old bird's gratitude, and through him the monkeys gained news of Sītā: each helped the other. Having found news at last, the monkeys were filled with joy, and that single word at the end bears witness to the whole change. Where they had resolved to die by fasting, hope was born; the monkeys who had sat down to die took up the work of living again, and that is both the outcome of this sarga and the beginning of what comes next.