Living upto Father's given word - Three Ramayana characters

Living upto Father’s Given word

pitR-vAkya-paripAlanaM is the central thread of Dharma woven through the entire Ramayana.  Certainly Rama’s greatness in this quality nobody can deny.  But there are two more characters in the Ramayana who are usually missed in this category.One is Indrajit who gave his life for his father.The other is Angada. Angada became loyal to Rama just because his father Vali told him to be so. At least Indrajit did not live to see his father Ravana being killed by Rama. But Angada knew who killed his father and lived all his life serving him. Also it should be noted that  Angada, being a monkey and therefore of a natural chapala-buddhi, could still control himself and discipline himself.  So it appears Angada is greater than Rama in his pitR-vAkya-paripAlana.

But Rama’s pitR-vAkya-paripAlanam has another not-well-known facet to it. Dasaratha once promised to Jatayu (at the time of his love-marriage with Kausalya; it was Jatayu who had united them) to give his first-born son to Jatayu.  But due to the long time that elapsed until Rama was born, both of them obviously forgot it. Finally Rama as a sarvajna did the unique obsequies to Jatayu which he did not do to his father Dasaratha. So he took care to see that the word given by his father were protected in toto