Jatayu

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Jatayu fighting Ravana on a painting by Ravi Varma

Jatayu ( Sanskrit जटायू Jatāyū ) is a mythological figure from the Indian national epic Ramayana and king of the vultures. During the kidnapping of Sita , he is killed by Ravana .

The Ramayana

The Ramayana epic was written between the 4th century BC. And the 2nd century AD in India. It is an art poem consisting of 24,000 double verses, which is attributed to the legendary singer Valmiki and has been largely complete since the 2nd century AD. Spreading with the Indian religions, it developed a very large cultural influence in Southeast Asia and was adapted to regional conditions. In Thailand, as Ramakian, it has become the founding legend of the Chakri dynasty , which sees itself in a line of descent with Rama, while in Indonesia, for example, it significantly shaped Wayang and Kecak and in the Khmer empire the temple and palace buildings of Angkor . In India it is the second national epic alongside the Mahabharata .

Jatayu in Ramayana

It has the shape of a vulture and is a son of Aruna and Syeni and nephew of Garuda . His brother is Sampati . In his youth he competes with him to see who can fly higher. In one of these races, Jatayu comes too close to the sun and his brother uses his own wings to protect him from being burned. Thereby he saves Jatayu, but loses both wings and has to stay on earth from now on.

Jatayu is friends with Dasharatha , the king of Ayodhya , and meets his son Rama during his exile from the royal court in the Gandaka forest. From then on he accompanies and protects Rama, his wife Sita and Rama's brother Lakshmana . When Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, who wants to kidnap her to Lanka , she asks Jatayu, who is awakening from his slumber, not to try to save her because he was inferior to the Demon King, but to tell Rama and Lakshmana about it. Although Jatayu is very old, he himself speaks of 60,000 years, he calls out to fight out of love for Dasharatha and Rama Ravana. He attacks the ten-headed demon king with beak and claws in hand-to-hand combat, while the latter severely wounds him with several arrows. Jatayu can successively destroy or kill two arches of Ravana and his sky chariot along with the crew, so that the demon is forced to jump to the ground. There the King of the Vultures can chop off his ten left arms, which grow back immediately before Ravana fatally wounds his throat, wings and side with his sword.

When Rama, who is looking for the missing Sita with Lakshmana, sees the blood-soaked Jatayu, he first believes that it is a demon in the form of a vulture who has eaten his wife. Only when he comes closer and Jatayu speaks to him with the last of his strength and reports of the abduction of Sita by Ravana does Rama recognize his friend. As he dies, Jatayu can tell Rama in which direction Ravana took Sita and predicts that he will defeat the demon king and win back his wife. According to the funeral rites from the sacred texts and with corresponding offerings, Rama and Lakshmana pay their last respects to the king of the vultures and burn him on a stake.

Jatayu obtained by the blessing Rama, the Hinduism as an incarnation of Vishnu holds, the Moksha . The place where he is said to have fallen to earth after the lost battle against Ravana was shaped by Rama into a tirtha , a sacred place where several rivers converge. Today this sacred pond is located in the Nashik district and is included in the Mahashivaratri celebrations.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hari Prasad Shastri: Ramayana . The story of Prince Rama, the beautiful Sita and the great ape Hanuman. In: Diederich's yellow series . Heinrich Hugendubel, Kreuzlingen 2004, ISBN 3-89631-431-9 , p. 296 .
  2. ↑ a b Third Book of Kanda, 14th song
  3. ↑ Fourth book Kishkindha Kanda, 58th song
  4. ↑ Third Book Aranya Kanda, Song 49
  5. ↑ Third Book Aranya Kanda, Canto 50
  6. ↑ Third Book Aranya Kanda, 51st Canto
  7. ↑ Third Book Aranya Kanda, 68th Canto
  8. ↑ Third book Aranya Kanda, 69th song