Jatayu the Brave

High in the oldest trees of the forest there lived a great old vulture named Jatayu. His feathers were grey, his eyes were dim, and his flying days were mostly behind him. He liked to sit in the sun and remember when he had been young and strong.

One afternoon the sky went dark, though it was not nearly evening. Jatayu lifted his old head. A chariot was racing across the sky, and in it sat a great demon king with ten heads, whose name was Ravana. And clutched in his arms, weeping, struggling, calling out for help, was a woman. It was Sita. And she was being stolen away.

Jatayu did not stop to think about how old he was. He did not stop to count the demon’s ten heads or his twenty arms. He heard a frightened person crying for help, and that was enough. He spread his tired grey wings, and he rose up into the sky.

“Let her go!” he cried. “You will not pass while I still breathe.”

Ravana laughed at the old bird. But Jatayu flew straight at him, tearing at the chariot with his claws, snapping the demon’s great bow, breaking the chariot apart so that it tumbled from the sky. For a few brave moments, the old vulture who could barely fly held the mightiest demon in the world to a standstill.

But Jatayu was old, and Ravana was terrible. In his fury the demon struck the vulture’s wings, and Jatayu fell, down and down, to the forest floor.

He did not die at once. He held on. Because he knew that someone would come looking for Sita, and he had something they needed to know.

And someone did come. Rama, searching the forest for his stolen wife, found the broken old bird lying among the leaves. He knelt and gathered Jatayu’s grey head into his arms, the way you would hold a dear old friend.

“South,” Jatayu whispered. “Ravana took her south. I tried, Rama. I could not stop him. But I tried.”

“You did more than anyone could ask,” said Rama, and there were tears on his face. “You gave everything you had.”

And the old vulture closed his eyes, content, and was gone. Rama mourned him and honoured him as he would have honoured his own father.