Who Is Sampati?
The old vulture who saw where Sita was
Sampati is an old, giant vulture in the Ramayana and the older brother of Jatayu.
When he was young, he and his brother flew high toward the sun. Sampati spread his wings to shield his brother, and his own wings were burned, so he could no longer fly. For a long time after that he lived on a mountaintop. When he heard the monkeys, despairing on the seashore because they could not find Sita, talk about Jatayu, he learned that Ravana had killed his brother, and he grieved deeply.
Then, with eyes that could see very far, he told the monkeys that Sita was on the island of Lanka across the sea. The original epic says that after he helped the monkeys, new wings grew on Sampati and he flew into the sky once more.
