Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Kiṣkindhā · 31 of 50
31. Sampāti
Kiṣkindhā (किष्किन्धा)
The vulture on the cliff is Sampāti, Jaṭāyu's brother. He hears them speak of Jaṭāyu's death and comes down into the grief he has been owed for years. The brothers had raced toward the sun. Sampāti shielded Jaṭāyu and burned his wings. He has lived on this cliff, flightless, long enough to see Rāvaṇa pass in the air with a woman calling on Rāma. He tells them the name of the city. Laṅkā, across the water, a hundred yojanas of sea. Sītā is there, alive, in a grove, under a sentence of time.
The news is the whole of his usefulness, and it is enough. Some tellings restore his wings when the news is given, a symmetry with the brother who died informing. This page does not require the restoration. The stable fact is the sentence: she is across that water, and she is alive. A flightless bird has done what an army could not.
The party now knows the direction and cannot use it. The sea is the problem the Kiṣkindhā-kāṇḍa hands to the next book. Who among them can cross a distance that is not a road.
नेपालीमा
चट्टानमा बसेको गिद्ध सम्पाति थिए, जटायुका दाजु। सूर्यतिरको दौडमा उनले भाइलाई ढाकेका थिए, र उनका पखेटा जलेका थिए। उनले रावणलाई रामलाई पुकार्दै गरेकी स्त्री लिएर उडेको देखेका थिए। उनले लङ्काको नाम बताए, समुद्रपारि सय योजन टाढा। सीता त्यहाँ उपवनमा जीवित छिन्। केही कथनले पखेटा फर्काउँछन्। यो पृष्ठलाई त्यो चाहिँदैन। स्थिर तथ्य: उनी त्यो पानीपारि जीवित छिन्। उड्न नसक्ने चराले सेनाले नसकेको काम गर्यो। टोलीले दिशा थाहा पायो, तर त्यो प्रयोग गर्न सक्दैन। बाटो नभएको दूरी तर्न सक्ने कोही छ?