On this Vijaya Dashami day, there is a
tradition of offering worship to Shami Vruksha and exchanging the leaves of
Shami by reciting the following Shloka:
Shamee shamayatE pApam Shamee
shatruvinashanam|Arjunasya DhanurdhAree RAmasya priyadarshini||
Shami eradicates sins, destroys enemies. It
was bearing the bow (Gandeevi) of Arjuna and showed Seetha to Hanumantha.
Arjunasya Dhanurdhari: Arjuna, before
joining the services of the King of Viratanagara as Bruhannale to spend one
year without getting identified, packed all his weapons, including the Great
Gandeevi, in such a way it looked like a packed corpse. He kept the packed
weapons on a Shami tree. This tree has thorns and hence nobody dares to climb it and steal the
package. Shami is a rare tree and hence, it was easily identifiable. The
package was shaped like a corpse because none gets attracted by a hanging
corpse. In fact, a hanging corpse might trigger fear in the minds of onlookers.
When Bheema killed Keechaka for behaving
mischievously with Draupadi, who was in the guise of Sairandhri in the court of
King Virata, Duryodhana immediately guesses that Bheema was there. This was
because, there was a divine truth that whoever kills one of the two Asuras
namely Bakasura and Keechaka would invariably kill the other. Bheema had
already killed Bakasura and it was known to the entire universe. When Keechaka
too was killed, Duryodhana guessed that only Bheema had killed Keechaka and to
bring either him or, if his guesswork was right, all the Pandavas would be
exposed so that he could send them all for yet another term of exile for twelve
years and one year of living incognito as per the agreement. That is why,
Duryodhana orders for confiscation of all cows belonging to King Virata. He
knew very well that to get the cows released for their king, Pandavas would
certainly plunge into war and therefore it would be easy for him to identify
the Pandavas.
One portion of his guesswork was right as
Arjuna plunged into war, discarding the attire of Bruhannale. Originally
Uttarakumara, the son of King Virata, was supposed to do the fight. Arjuna had
one quality or boon. Whoever is behind him would lose all their strength, power
and valor. When Uttara starts off for war, Bruhannale volunteered to be the
chariot. As Arjuna was driving the chariot, Uttara lost his power and strength.
As a result of this, Uttara started escaping from the battlefield. Arjuna
emerges from his Bruhannale attire and takes the weapons from the Shami,
combats Kaurava army.
Jatayu and Sampati were the sons of Aruna, son of Vinate, and Shyene was their mother. In Adi Parva of Mahabharata, there is a mention of these two brothers challenging each other on their speed in flying. When they had flown a very long height in the sky, Jatayu started fumbling due to the heat and Sampati tried to cover his younger brother from the heat with his wings. By that time, Jatayu had lost consciousness and he fell in Dandakaranya. Sampati too could not withstand the heat as his wings were burnt and he fell on the shores of South sea, where a sage called Nishakara was doing penance. Seeing the bird on the verge of death, the sage treated the bird. The bird recovered. However, since that moment, the two brothers did not meet each other at all. Jatayu was unaware of where his elder brother was till death as he died while trying to prevent Ravana from escaping with Seetha. Sampati saved the Vanaras, including Hanumantha, from committing suicide by providing them with the information about the whereabouts of Ravana, Lanka and Seetha. Jatayu also died only after informing Rama and Lakshmana about Ravana. What a great service these two birds rendered to the Lord in their dying moments? 
