Jatayu and the Cottage at Panchavati

On the way to Panchavati, the travellers saw an enormous old vulture perched beside the path. Ram and Lakshman stepped in front of Sita at once and reached for their bows — a stranger's shape, however still it sat, was not something to trust without question in this forest.

The bird spoke first, and gently. "Ram," he said, "know me as a friend of your father."

He was Jatayu, son of Aruna and Shyeni, younger brother of the great vulture Sampati, and Dasharatha's old companion from years before. When he heard that the king had died, he mourned as if for a friend of his own. He offered, without being asked, to watch over Sita whenever Ram and Lakshman had to go any distance from their home. Ram embraced him with the same respect he would have shown his father.

At Panchavati, Ram chose the ground carefully — close enough to the Godavari for water, but set high enough that no flood would reach it, with level land nearby for fruit trees, flowers, and firewood. Lakshman built the cottage himself, cutting strong timber and bamboo and binding it with grass and clay until it stood firm. Ram praised the skill and the care in every joint of it. Sita arranged the inside as a home, and the three of them performed a simple rite together before they stepped in for the first time.

Autumn passed, and the cold of early winter settled over the forest. One clear morning the three of them walked down to the Godavari together. Lakshman, looking at the ripened fields and the mist over the cold water, found himself thinking of Bharat, far away at Nandigrama, living as plainly as any hermit while he waited for Ram to return. Grief turned to anger in him, and he began to speak sharply against Kaikeyi for what she had done.

Ram stopped him there. He asked Lakshman not to speak of their mother that way, and to remember instead the gentleness in Bharat's own words and conduct — for it was Bharat, after all, who had refused the throne rather than accept what his mother had won for him.

The cottage at Panchavati was not the end of their exile. It was only a place to stand still for a while before whatever came next.