सम्पातेरात्मकथा

When the vulture had offered the water and bathed, the monkey leaders sat down in a circle round him on that lovely mountain. Having paid his debt to his brother with the libation, Sampāti was now at peace, and the monkeys, placing him in their midst, made a picture of an assembly of listeners. Sampāti, who had now won their trust — he who was suspected in the last sarga had become believable, so his words were heard with faith — spoke again with joy to Aṅgada, who sat surrounded by all the monkeys. "Keep silent, monkeys, and listen closely," he said. "I shall tell you truly how I know about the princess of Mithilā." With "truly" he rules out even a trace of invention in what he says.

"Long ago, sinless one, I fell on the summit of this Vindhya, my body wrapped in the sun's heat and scorched by its rays." The burning of his wings mentioned before is told here again at length, but now as his own story. "When I came to my senses after six nights, helpless and dazed, I looked in every direction and could recognise nothing." Six nights of unconsciousness, then memory returning little by little — a true-to-life description. "Then, as I looked over the seas, the mountains, all the rivers and lakes, the forests and the lands, my understanding came back to me, and I concluded: this is the Vindhya on the shore of the southern ocean, full of flocks of happy birds, of caves, hollows and peaks." His memory returns simply through naming what he saw, and with knowing where he was, his new life began. His fall is told in three stages, heat, burning and swoon, but his return comes through seeing alone: a bird's understanding rests in its eyes, so it is by looking that he remembers himself.

"Here there was a holy hermitage, honoured even by the gods, where a seer named Niśākara practised fierce austerities." After the Vindhya comes the memory of the hermitage; step by step the poet leads the story to the ascetic. "Eight thousand years have passed for me on this mountain since I lived here with that seer, and Niśākara, who knew dharma, has since gone to heaven." The eight thousand years show both the vulture's long life and how long he has been parted from the sage. "Slowly and with great difficulty I climbed down from the rugged summit of the Vindhya, and made my painful way again over ground bristling with sharp darbha grass. I longed to see the seer, and I came to him in great distress. Jaṭāyu and I had often visited him before." For a wingless bird, getting down a mountain was hard work — "slowly" and "with difficulty" both speak of it — yet the longing to see his teacher drove him on, and the memory of his brother as his companion is touching. The story of a place leads to the story of a teacher.

"Near his hermitage fragrant breezes blew, and not a tree was to be seen that lacked flower or fruit." By the power of austerity even the rule of the seasons was relaxed there: always flower, always fruit. Describing a hermitage this way is Vālmīki's well-known method, showing an ascetic's greatness through his surroundings, and these two signs alone prove the holiness of the place. "Reaching that holy hermitage, I sheltered at the foot of a tree and waited, longing to see the venerable Niśākara." A visitor sits at the foot of a tree and does not enter a hermitage uninvited; that is good manners. "Then, far off, I saw the seer, blazing with splendour and unassailable, returning from his bath, facing north." The radiant sage coming back from bathing could be seen from afar.

"Bears, sṛmara deer, tigers, lions and serpents of many kinds crowded round him as he came, as creatures crowd round a generous giver." The simile is charming: the sage gives safety, the animals come to ask for it. "Then, knowing that the seer had reached his hermitage, the creatures went away, just as when a king has gone in, his whole army and his ministers go to their own quarters." The second simile, of a royal court, suggests that even in the forest there is order; together the images of giver and king show the sage's power. "The seer was pleased to see me and went back into his hermitage, and after only a moment he came out and asked me my errand" — that "only a moment" shows his promptness and his regard for a guest. "'Gentle one,' he said, 'looking at your ruined state, I cannot even count your feathers. Both your wings are burnt by fire, and the life in your poor body is failing.'"

"'I have seen two vultures before, as swift as the wind, kings of the vultures, brothers, who could take any form they wished.'" The sage recognised him from memory, which proves the two brothers had often come there before. "'You are the elder, Sampāti, and Jaṭāyu is your younger brother. You both used to take human form and clasp my feet.'" Birds who could take any shape bowing to their teacher in human form — that is the way of devotion. "'What sickness has come upon you? How did you lose your wings? Or is this some punishment someone has laid on you? I am asking — tell me everything.'" The sarga ends with three questions, and the answer comes in the next, where Sampāti tells at length of the terrible deed of chasing the sun; this is the poet's way of dividing his story.