Rama Sends Jatayu to Dasharatha without News of Sita's Abduction
Aranya Kanda, Doha 31
Doha 31 · Movement 2 of 2
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At the threshold of Jatayu's departure, Rama speaks to him as a son. When the bird reaches Dasharatha, he is not to tell Rama's father that Sita has been carried away. The grief of the forest is not to be borne as news into that meeting.
Rama places the burden of answer upon himself. If he is Rama, then Ravana will go there with his whole lineage and give Dasharatha the news himself. No messenger need carry the present wound ahead of justice, and the Lord's words are an assurance rather than a doubt about his own identity.
Jatayu may therefore leave without holding the future together. The Lord who stands bereft beside him claims the coming reckoning. Between the dying bird and the son of Dasharatha, sorrow is entrusted to the certainty contained in Rama's own name.
Carry no sorrow to my father, Rama says, for Ravana himself will bear the final account.
Read the passage from the Manas
सीता हरन तात जनि कहहु पिता सन जाइ।। जौं मैं राम त कुल सहित कहिहि दसानन आइ।।31।।
Do not speak of Sita's abduction, dear son, when you go to your father. If I am truly Rama, then the Dasanana shall come himself and confess his entire kula's destruction.