This article, as the title suggests, is going to focus on the connections between Jatayu and the great Itihāsa, Mahābhārata.
Now I know most of you might be thinking “Hey, isn’t Jatayu mentioned in the Ramayana?”.
The answer is “Yes!”.
The main role of Jatayu lies in the Itihāsa Ramayana, where Jatayu is a divine bird and the younger son of Aruna and Shyeni. Sampati, his brother, is a demi-god who has the form of a vulture and was an old friend of Dasharatha, father of Rama. According to the legends, it is believed that Jatayu fell on the rocks in Chadayamangalam in Kerala after his wings were cut off by Ravana while abducting Sita. After narrating the incident of Sita’s abduction to Sri Rama and Lakshmana, the wounded Jatayu died. Sri Rama then performed the final funeral rites of Jatayu.
At this place, Sri Rama is worshipped as the Vijayaraghava Perumal in the Vijayaraghava Perumal temple. The waterbody where Jatayu fell is called Theertham. Formerly known as Jatayumangalam, the place is mostly credited as the falling place of Jatayu since rocks there hold striking carvings of Jatayu’s beak mark during his last breath and footprints of Lord Rama.
However, everything in this world is connected to each other in some way or the other.
So let me show you a way or two how Jatayu is connected to the Itihāsa Mahabharata.
The father of Jatayu, Aruna was the charioteer of Surya, the sun God. He is the personification of the reddish glow of the rising Sun. According to Ramayana, Aruna was married to Shyeni with whom he had 2 sons – Jatayu and Sampati. Both of his sons played an important role in the Itihāsa. There is an incident about Aruna in Mahabharata as well, that Surya offered Aruna and his divine chariot to his sons Karna – which Karna denied as he didn’t want to rely on others to win the war like Arjuna who always depended upon Krishna according to him. The younger brother of Aruna, Garuda plays an important role in the Mahabharata Itihāsa as well.
The story of Garuda’s birth and his deeds are mentioned in Adi Parva of Mahabharata. According to this, when Garuda emerged from the egg, he appeared as an intense fire that was capable of consuming the whole world. The Devas became frightened and begged for mercy. Hearing them plead, he reduced his size and energy by himself.
Garuda’s father was the Rishi Kasyapa and had two wives, Vinata and Kadru, who were the daughters of Prajapati Daksha. Kasyapa, on the pleadings of his wives, granted them their wishes; Vinata wished for two sons and Kadru wished for a thousand snakes as her sons. Both laid eggs. While the thousand eggs of Kadru hatched early into snakes, Vinata’s eggs didn’t hatch for a long time and she soon grew impatient. Vinata broke open one egg, which was half formed, with the upper half only as a human and was thus deformed. Her half-formed son cursed her, decreeing that she would be a slave for her sister for a long time, by which time her second son would be born who would save her from his curse. Her first son flew away and came to prominence as Aruna, the red spectacle seen as the Sun rises in the morning, and also as charioteer of the Sun. The second egg hatched after a long time, during which period Vinata was the servant of her sister as she had lost a bet with her. When the second egg hatched, a fully grown, shining and of mighty size, bird form emerged as Garuda, the king of birds. Thus born Garuda. Kadru and her 1000 snakes would often give Garuda and his mother routine jobs which they had to duly obliged to. When Garuda learnt about the wager, he approached the Nagas and asked them what it would take to purchase her freedom. Their response was that Garuda would have to bring them the elixir of immortality, Amrita, the pot of divine nectar. It was a difficult task. The Amrita at that time was in the possession of the Devas, who guarded it, since it was the source of their immortality. They had ringed the Amrita with a massive fire that covered the sky. They had blocked the way to it with a fierce mechanical contraption of sharp rotating blades. And finally, they had stationed two gigantic poisonous snakes next to the elixir as deadly guardians.
However, Garuda agreed and with great difficulty, valour and strength obtained the Soma Rasa from heaven, without even consuming a single drop. On seeing this selfless act of Garuda, Lord Vishnu was pleased and appeared before him and offered to grant him a wish of his desire. Garuda asked for immortality and became Lord Vishnu’s vahana.
Lord Indra, or Indra Deva, the God of the sky, and Garuda also exchanged promises. Garuda promised that once he had delivered the Amrita, thus fulfilling the request of the serpents, he would make it possible for Indra to regain possession of the nectar and to take it back to the gods. Indra in return promised Garuda the serpents as food. Since then, Garuda was the ally of the Gods and the trusty mount of Lord Vishnu, as well as the implacable enemy of snakes, upon whom he preyed at every opportunity.
Through the story of Garuda, we can see the wish of one to be free, to be released from this life of bondage and break the cycle of life and death.
According to the Mahabharata, Garuda had six sons (Sumukha, Suvarna, Subala, Sunaama, Sunethra and Suvarchas) from whom were descended the race of birds. The members of this race were of great might and without compassion, subsisting as they did on their relatives the snakes. Lord Vishnu was their protector. Greater details and tales of Garuda can be seen in the Garuda Upanishad and Garuda Purana.
“Time creates all things and time destroys them all. Time burns all creatures and time again extinguishes that fire.” – Anukramanika Parva, Adi Parva.
Often we can see that The Great soul Jatayu is compared to The Great Bhishma Pitamah. No two people react to the same situation in the same way.
Here we can compare two legendary personalities Bhishma of Mahabharata and Jatayu of Ramyana. According to the scriptures, both Jatayu and Bhishma Pitamah were blessed with death. Then why did Jatayu find the bed of Lord Shri Rama’s lap and Bhishma Pitamah’s bed of poisonous arrows?
Jatayu, who was counting his last breath, said that “I knew that I could not win over Ravana, but I fought even if I did not fight, the generations to come would call me a coward.”
When Ravana cut off both the wings of Jatayu, death came to him and as soon as death came, Giddharaj Jatayu called death a challenge. “O death! Beware! Don’t try to move forward! I will accept you but you cannot touch me until I hear Mother Sita’s Sudhi Prabhu Shriram.”
But Bhishma Pitama of Mahabharata, lying on the bed of the arrows for six months waiting for death, has tears in his eyes. The difference is because Bhishma had seen Draupadi’s reputation being looted in the court, and could not resist and remained silent. Duryodhana dared to call and insult her and the Pandavas. He did not do anything to stop this. Draupadi kept crying and kept screaming and screaming, but Bhishma Pitamah could not protect the woman sitting with bowed head. The result of this was that even after getting the blessing of death, the bed of the arrows was found and Jatayu respected the woman, sacrificed his life, and while dying, he got the bed of the lap of Lord Rama.
Those who turn a blind eye on seeing wrong with others have a speed and fate like Bhishma
One who struggles for others despite knowing his result, their glory is like Jatayu.
Bhishma was a capable warrior and was equally powerful. In spite of his powerfulness, he chose to be silent during the disrobing of Draupadi whereas in the case of Jatayu he was old and powerless but still tried his best to protect Sita. Bishmas name and fame went down in history because of this one act but Jatayu’s name and fame went high in history.
“Real power is not about physical strength but about the deep desire to help.”
“Therefore, one must always oppose the wrong.
Truth is annoying, but not defeated.”
The story of Jatayu, inspires us to make supreme sacrifice in the fight for righteousness or Dharma. His life teaches us to always stand by the right. The integrity and loyalty of Jatayu shows us that the real success is to please the Lord. Jatayu lost his life fighting for Lord Ram but achieved the purpose of Life to please the Lord.
It is better to lose and win than to win and lose. Jatayu, despite being old and not very powerful, on witnessing the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana and forcefully taking her to Lanka, disregarded his old age and tried to save Sita by fighting against Ravana but failed valiantly.
Lord Rama and his brother Lakshmana came across him where he was lying dying inhaling his last breaths. Jatayu told Rama about Sita’s abduction and Ravana’s evil plans before breathing his last. Moved to tears by the gallantry and courage of the aged Jatayu, the deeply touched Lord Rama gave the bird its last rites as though the bird was his own father. This teaches us that we must always stand up for the weak no matter what. Whether we have the capability or not, standing up for what is right is something we should be able to do fearlessly. On witnessing injustice in the society, we should stand up to at least try and make things right and not just stand by as a meek spectator.
The fact that Jatayu was so old and weak and still tried to take on the powerful Ravana single-handedly, teaches us to be courageous and unafraid, and to take on any challenge that comes our way in life and accomplish it to the best of one’s ability. It is better to try and fail again and again until we finally succeed in some way or the other rather than never try at all and give up without trying and failing weak to the fear of failure and societal image.
Let us learn from Jatayu’s life to never hide ourselves and courageously face every problem that comes our way and not to stay silent or turn a blind eye to injustice and cruelty. Let us learn to always stand up for what’s right fearlessly.
Thus, let us enhance our lives by rereading, retelling and going on to understand in depths and thus unravel the great secrets and lessons to be learnt from the 2 great Itihāsa bestowed upon us- The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. Not only for its piety, but also because it teaches us to have strong morals and live a life of Dharma. It will help enrich our lives and mould us to be the leaders of tomorrow with strong cultural and traditional influences.
Author Profile:
Angela Johnson is a final year Undergraduate student in School of Biotechnology at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus. Her fields of interests are science, philosophy and psychology. She is passionate about reading and writing.
Sneha Baiju is a final year Undergraduate student at School Of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri Campus. Her areas of interest are science, technology and literature. She also finds fascination in blogging and travelling.
References
DEBROY, BIBEK. The Mahabharata. India: Penguin Books, 2014.
Disclaimer : This article belongs to the author in full, including opinions and insights. Amrita University is not responsible or liable for the information contained in this article, or its implications therein
