The Symbolism of Jatayu, Sampati, and Garuda

Question

I had another question. You explained that Garuda flies very high and therefore represents a higher mind, right? So why are both these characters portrayed as vultures? Could another bird have been used?

Answer

Look, Garuda is one bird, and the vulture is another. Sampati and Jatayu are both called “gridhraraja.”

Why are they called gridhraraja?

Because “gridhra” is a Sanskrit word meaning to desire or aspire. That is the meaning of gridhra.

But they are called gridhraraja. We should not understand this simply as referring to a vulture. The word gridhraraja has been used to convey a particular point: there is a power that desires to protect purity.

So your question is entirely valid. On one hand, Sampati is called gridhraraja, and on the other, he is called the son of Garuda. If he is a vulture king, how can he be Garuda’s son?

This is the distinctive feature of the story: different symbols have been chosen to convey different points.

Why was the vulture chosen? To convey one particular point.

Why was Garuda chosen? Because the story now tells us that Jatayu sits in a tree. But where is Sampati situated?

On the Vindhya mountain. He flies very high and can even fly close to the sun.

Garuda has been used because this bird flies at a great height and can see things very far away.

Similarly, Sampati, this power of the mind, exists at a very high level. Because it is situated so high, it can perceive distant things.

Lanka is very far away, isn’t it?

Beyond the place where Sampati and all the monkeys are sitting lies a vast ocean, a hundred yojanas across. Lanka is beyond that ocean. And within Lanka, Sita is sitting in the Ashoka grove.

So she is very far away.

To convey that Sita is still far away, within the subconscious mind—that purity is still imprisoned in the subconscious—the word Garuda has been used here. It helps us understand.

Suppose Garuda had not been mentioned, and Sampati had instead been called the son of Aruna, just as Jatayu was.

It is through Garuda that we have been able to understand this ability to see far away. Just as Garuda can see distant things, Sampati too is telling us about something very far away. He is seeing into the distance.

The symbols have been used in this way to help us understand.

Through them, we can grasp the essence of the story. Otherwise, we have no means of understanding its deeper meaning.