Reading Notes: PDE Ramayana Part C

Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition

from M. Dutt, R. Dutt, Gould, Griffith, Hodgson, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Oman, Richardson, and Ryder.

Notes for Part C

#49
After learning about Sampati, Jatayu's brother, we get to learn more about him. Sampati lost his wings because he and Jatayu flew too close to the sun, and to save his brother, Sampati shielded Jatayu with his wings. Sampati sacrificed himself for his brother. This story has parallels with Icarus flying too close to the sun, but doesn't end in the death of Sampati. A common theme in the Ramayana is redemption, and it seems like Sampati might get his chance at that by helping Rama. It is interesting how much of the story is set up for Rama to meet all these cursed people and creatures, especially those who are told to wait for someone similar to Rama. It seems like time passes but everyone lives a really long time, and they are all waiting and waiting for Rama to restore them.

#50
So now we come to the point in the story where the monkeys need to confirm Sita's location and plan how they will save her. This feels like an action movie where the bad guys have one of the main characters trapped and the rest of the good guys are planning how to get them out of captivity. Except in those cases you can fly a drone or plane over the area to collect intelligence, because we have technology. In the Ramayana, apparently there aren't any boats the monkeys can use to cross 100 leagues of water (which according to Google's distance converter is about 345 miles - just a bit short of the distance from Norman, OK to Houston, TX), so they need to jump across. Luckily Hanuman can easily jump across the distance. I liked how Hanuman is able to make the jump while taking a detour to kill a rakshasi - Ramayana physics are weird. This is very action movie esque as well, because those movies tend to use larger than life effects, and things that aren't physically possible to drive the plot

Hanuman making his jump and killing the rakshasi, Source: PDE Ramayana

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