So, the first piece of information Ram receives is that a man called Ravan has abducted Sita in a flying chariot and taken her southward
Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik
One of the most amazing things about the Ramayana — which makes it special — is that it is perhaps the world’s first mystery novel, a whodunnit. It is a process involving Jatayu, Kabandha, Shabari, Sugriva, and finally Jatayu’s elder brother, Sampati.
Ram returns after hunting deer to find Sita missing, and he doesn’t know where she is. There are no footprints on the ground. He asks the birds, the animals, the mountains, the rocks, and the rivers but they know nothing.
Then he finds a bird, Jatayu, with wings hacked off. Jatayu tells him that a man came by air, picked Sita up in his flying chariot, and took her in a southern direction. Jatayu tried to stop them by spreading his wings, but the man hacked them off. So, the first piece of information Ram receives is that a man called Ravan has abducted Sita in a flying chariot and taken her southward.
Ram begins walking in that direction. On the way, he encounters an asura called Kabandha, with long arms and no head, who tries to eat Ram and Lakshman. Ram kills the asura, and from Kabandha’s body a Gandharva emerges. The Gandharva tells Ram that he doesn’t know who kidnapped Sita or who Ravan is, but maybe the king of the southern direction — Sugriva — might be able to help. He advises Ram to find Sugriva.
Now Ram has some information: an enemy, and a probable ally, both linked to the south. He continues heading that way and meets a tribal woman named Shabari. She offers him ber (wild berries) and tells him where to find Sugriva, who is hiding from his brother Bali due to a conflict between the two.Based on this information, Ram encounters the monkeys.
When he meets the monkeys, he meets Sugriva. They make a pact: Ram will help Sugriva defeat Bali, and in return, Sugriva will help Ram find Sita. In fact, the monkeys show Ram some jewellery they found — jewellery that had been thrown from the sky by Sita. This confirms that she had indeed passed through there.
The monkeys have collected the jewellery, but without knowing exactly where each piece was found, they cannot determine a precise trail. If they had two fixed locations, they could infer a direction. This seems to be the probable reason why Sugriva then instructs his monkey troops to go in all directions to search for Sita, giving elaborate descriptions of each zone—places he had visited while escaping his elder brother’s wrath.
The monkeys go in different directions. The one who is successful is Hanuman. And why is Hanuman successful? Because he encounters an old, wingless bird named Sampati, who is waiting on the shore. He is Jatayus’ elder brother, whose wings got burnt when he tried to stop his brother flying towards the sun. Sampati reveals, “My son, who feeds me every day, sits on the Mahendra mountain. Through the mountain passes, he saw a dark man carrying a fair woman in his arms. He asked for the right of passage through a mountain pass. That must be Ravan. He was travelling to his kingdom, on the other side of the sea, on an island.” No flying here, strangely.
So now, they have the final piece of information. Hanuman then flies across the sea to Lanka and discovers Sita.
The author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Reach him at devdutt.pattanaik@mid-day.com
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