About

A Little Wit. A Little Wisdom. Lots of India - This blog brings you the rich variety of opinions posted daily in the Indian blogosphere.

Find out more

Etcetera

Banners

DesiPundit banner

(Right-click and "Save image as".)

More banners

Donate

If you like reading DesiPundit, we would appreciate if you can contribute to our donation jar. Mind you, it is completely voluntary.

Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions expressed here are purely personal viewpoints of DesiPundit contributors only. We may not necessarily share the opinions of the authors we link to.

On Adams Bridge (Ram Setu) Controversy

ASI’s affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that historical evidence doesn’t prove the existence of Rama and other characters of Ramayana has led to to a huge controversy. As always, the blogosphere has much to say,

Jaafna think that secular governments shouldn’t comment on religious beliefs,

 No secular Government has the prerogative to pontificate on religion unless the public good is adversely impacted. Rama and the Ramayana transcend history. They belong to the realm of religion and assume an importance independent of historical empiricism. While the ASI had the undeniable right to challenge the VHP’s position on the Sethusamudram canal, it had no authority to question the historicity of Rama

Greatbong on the other hand wonders if the tales his grandmother told him were all false,

When I heard the news of the ASI’s submission to the court I was like “Dude…what are those people trying to say ! By stating that “no historically valid proof of Rama’s existence exists� they surely are not implying that the entire Ramayana is a figment of our collective imagination and that Rama is simply a mythical icon that represents the best of humanity—are they?� What next? Are they going to tell us that monkeys who wore clothes and fought with weapons and constructed bridges across seas never existed?Or that Ravana really didn’t have ten heads? Or that Sita was not really swallowed up by the earth? And most importantly there never was a talking bear named Jambavana?

Reality Check has an interesting FAQ on the entire controversy.

Q 1. Is the Ram Sethu an underwater bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka ?

Yes. It connects to Sri Lanka at a place called Talaimannar (not Jaffna - Yazhpaanam) The bridge is to the north of the port of Tuticorin. This means large ships between Chennai and Tuticorin (within the same state of TN) have to circumnavigate Sri Lanka. Small ships have no problem, see below.

If you liked our recommended link, subscribe to our full content.

24 comments

Gravatar image

Zorba
September 14th, 2007, 10:36 pm | #

I loved Jaffna’s post. It was a very interesting perspective.

Gravatar image

On the Expected Effects of Imbibing the Scientific and the Political Spirit in India « Proses Anonymitus
September 15th, 2007, 2:17 am | #

[...] passing we mention the recent works of others (most of which also collected in the review by Confused published in Desipundit [8]) like that of The Great Bong [9], Jaafna [10], Parseval [11], Reality Check [12], all of whom, [...]

Gravatar image

Eddie
September 15th, 2007, 2:11 pm | #

The lesson to note in this episode is India’s lack of an intellectual culture. No think tank or body of scholars have decided to launch a debate the issue on a sound rational basis.
They let the opportunistic politicians turn the issue to their advantage.

Gravatar image

Roberto
September 15th, 2007, 2:21 pm | #

Jaffna hit the nail on the head in his critique of the Archeological Survey of India. Terrific post on the Ramayana and the controversy surrounding the Sethu Bridge.

Gravatar image

Rishab Bhandari
September 16th, 2007, 5:37 am | #

When will we Inidan’s grow up ?
Ram & Ramayana ARE a figment of imagination. The ASI statement is 100 % logical and true. No one can deny that.

We should stop acting like children and learn to distinguish historical fact from imaginative fiction.

Marx has rightly said that relegion is the opium of people. Its most true for our illiterate, ignorant masses who are manupilated by crafty politicians [read BJP] for their own private/political agenda.

Insted of raising our voice over real issues, we Indians are willing to accept myth for reality and are willing to give our lives for such nonsense.

Its a pity !
Its a shame!

Gravatar image

C.Satyanarayana
September 17th, 2007, 8:41 am | #

The Geomorphological structures like coral reefs or sandbars in sea waters located along the coast or in some isolated locations but nowhere such structures connect one bank to other bank.Hence i feel Adams bridge is manmade and incourse of time sand and other particles are heavily deposited on bridge and looking like coral reef or sand bar.

Gravatar image

zuneid
September 18th, 2007, 11:54 am | #

well surely the politicians hav been quick on their heels 2 come up wid words that do nothin but play foul with the national fabric.
the big deal isn’t about the existence of a ram setu or the denial of the existence of lord Ram…history will alwez be history.u can’t alwez give proofs from the past towards wat we think of at present.its like the genes-we hav all the information of our ancestors in there….but we cant give a detailed evidence of “how,when and what” like questions,precisely.
but yeah,if people hav come to know of the existence of something or someone,from the information passed down onto generations over…there’s gotta be some truth…so lord ram did exist..scientifically speaking,we cant say if he was in flesh and blood existence,or was his aura a very supernatural kind,but very sure in existence….he did exist in some form or the other and of a kind that people hav come to rever and worship him from time immemorial…somethings never hav proof to them,but they do exist.and yes the actions of congres towards this has been irrational.
coming to the setu issue…i dont think we shud give a wild speculation over who built it and its religious significance just like that without a rationally solid base….hav we sent some underwater mission there to get the details?hav we carbon-dated the core samples of the setu?im afraid,we havent..and why shud we??we indians alwez like the talks and the hype,,,very few of us take a chance and speak in actions..if we go big guns about the controvery for a petty thing,then why not just dive down there and see wat the truth really is??

Gravatar image

Deepak
September 20th, 2007, 1:38 pm | #

Every great civilization in the world knows well how to respect their religion and their Gods, but Hindu is the only religion who do not respect their Gods in the name of secularism. Any politician cannot dare to say same thing about any other religion, what the Congress party said in its affidavit-that Ram does not exist ever. This is the only Hindu religion that from the last 500-700 years is beaten by the outsiders, because we were not united. We the Hindus respect so called Mahatma-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi about whom it is said-DE DI HAMEIN AZADI BINA KHADAG BINA DHAAL, SABARMATI KE SANT TOONE KAR DIYA KAMAL, when 1 million Hindus were killed in the riots, at the time of partition.
The communities who can’t respect their own religion, than an outsider will also not give respect to it. Ours is the oldest religion on this planet Earth. But the education system formed by the British agent Macalle, does not teach respect for our own religion. In our schools, history of Moughal period, Hadappa, Mohanjodaro is taught to us, but the great Ved-Purans, Yog, Ayurved, Ramayan, Gita etc. could not taught to us because we are secular. In the Ved-Purans, written back lakhs of years ago there is the description of smallest form of particle atom when western countries even do not know wearing clothes. There is written the smallest and biggest form of time. There is also the description of how the universe was formed, its size and how it will came to end and this matches with the modern theory. Some 500-700 years it was believed by the west that earth is at the center of universe and Sun moves around the Earth, and much before that our Ved-Purans were in existence. We taught west the value and use of “0� Shunya. We have the best scientific language of the world-Sanskrit. Some 2000-3000 years ago there was only one religion that was Sanatan dharma, all other religion just as Christianity, Islam and other religion of the world evolve from this Sanatan dharma-Now a days which is called Hindu dharma.
At present only 15% of this literature (Ved-Purans Etc.) is left with us. For young generation carrier, entertainment and relationship are the issues on which they talk and are interested.
Do you ever think that why we the country of 100 crores needs to import mobile phones, televisions and even other small electronic items from other countries? Did you thought ever why we need to fulfill our defense requirements from smaller countries like Israel and Sweden?
Our education system, corrupt bureaucrats and politicians are responsible for this. There are bomb blast everywhere in the country, the police system is totally failed, no roads, no water and no proper sewerage system. Politicians are filling their bank accounts with money. The total political system, education system is responsible for this.
Now I come to the main point that now a days there is discussion in our country whether to break the Ram Sethu or not. I want to told you that at the first news came out from the NASA some years before, it was clearly said by them that this setu is built by the humans and it is more than 1.7 million years old. Now NASA is denying the fact, this may be the political pressure from Indian Govt. I say-forget NASA, it is well described in our Ved Purans, Valmiki Ramayan, Ramcharitmans and Vishnu Puran etc. These are our Ved Purans in which there is a description of the river Sarswati. It is proven from the satellite images too, that there was a time when sarswati river exist on this Dev bhoomi bharat. If the young generation could read Ramayan, there is the detailed description how the sethu was built.

Ram Vimukh Us Haal Tumahara, Raha Na Koi Kul Rovanhara-This same thing is going to happen with Congress Party.
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder�, and we Hindus are on the path of suicide, by not respecting our own religion.
You can check the detailed description of Lanka war and the building of SRI RAM SETHU on the link below, in Yudh Kand.

http://www.geocities.com/bhagvatjee/vraamaayan/index.htm

The department of Earth science of the government of India in a report to the president to India has stated that shoal stones placement makes out that they were ‘deliberately placed there’. That is, as if it was constructed in the manner described by the Sage Valmiki in Valmiki Ramayan.
The main reason behind this whole episode is that every player in this match hitting his own goals. DMK the main player in the field is the strong supporter of LTTE. They want to help LTTE, who after the removal of the Sri Ram Sethu would have a free passage in and around India & Sri Lanka. Removal of the Ram Sethu would make this area an International passage, and will raise security concerns in the coming years. Tsunami can also destroy the coastal areas, in absence of Sri Ram Sethu. There is a huge reservoir of Thorium in this area, and after possible removal of Sri Ram Sethu, India will lose this asset. Recently, Sonia Gandhi, leader of Congress party visited Rameshwaram and attended the inauguration ceremony of Sethusamudram Canal project with Dr Manmohan Singh, T.R.Balu and Karunanidhi. They chalked out a plan to destroy the Sri Ram Sethu. Sonia is an outsider and she cannot understand the importance of Sri Ram in our culture and in our heart. Her drive is controlled through Vatican City.

The late Pope John Paul visited India twice and on both the occasions he said, “we want to make Asia a Christian subcontinent and our mission begins from India�. Sonia is having the same mentality, and she has no faith in our culture and our history. Our freedom fighters surrender their lives to oust the foreigners, but Congress party is appointing another foreigner to the high chair of Indian offices.
Sri Lanka is also opposing this project but being a small nation its concerns has no value in the mind of our politicians.
The Sri Ram Sethu is the only wonder on this planet earth. Some parts of sea at that time were 20m to 200m deep. To build the Sri Ram Sethu those places were filled by the Vanar Sena. Sri Ram Sethu is more than 5km of width and more than 60 km long according to some literature.

So, the young generation like us has to be stood in the interest of Sri Ram Sethu and to save our culture and history, which is the oldest on this planet earth.

Deepak

Gravatar image

LIZZ KADAVIL
September 21st, 2007, 1:31 pm | #

Adam’s bridge is a chain of shoals, 30 km long, in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. During periods of lowered sea level over the last 100,000 years, Adam’s bridge has provided an intermittent land connection between India and Sri Lanka.

According to Hindu legend, the bridge was built to transport Rama, hero of the Ramayana, to the island to rescue his wife from the demon king Ravanna. Rama has under taken world’s most challenging engineering project with an army of monkeys (Vanara Sena). It must have taken centuries to complete the bridge. Rama is believed to have lived 17,50,000 years ago (Tetra-yuga), when no other human beings existed. Modern Man has the History of only 2,00,000 Years.

Human Body is the most natural and most complex, there is nothing more than Humans. If God has created Man then no more credentials are required. Let Monkeys be monkeys,do not make them construction workers.

Indians are intelligent, they should not forgo common sense over myths. God do not need historical evidence or our support. Lord Rama is God even if Rama Sethu is Adam’s Bridge. Religion do not need any proof.

Gravatar image

zuneid
September 25th, 2007, 9:51 am | #

why are we like this dat we always seem to have a religious hangover??and i include all the so called flag-bearers of their respective religions….i mean the world has pressed on with other important issues…and we still are speculating over the past…
lets just take it this way-nobody can take away the respect or the beliefs of a religion which is followed by billions of people around the world….so even if its a handful of people(read congress) around doing d crap,it wont even matter a single bit so far we all hav faith…and trust me buddy..faith is all that counts…lets b wat we r,lets respect other religions 2…lets not feel insecure about anything…nobody is gonna take hinduism away from india, and neither its rich past and heritage…things wont change…so lets not be stupid debating about anything dat leads us to confusion for no big deal at all….
we can be self-sufficient if we tone down our over-zealous attitude towards our religions,and instead,use all that devotion to the cause of science,technology and commerce for the larger betterment of india and its people….
and to the one who calls other religions’ people as “outsiders”…lemme tell u that nobody among us is an outsider at dis present time,,,we all stand one as indians…and for the sake of information,hinduism too came from europe as aryan civilisation…d dravidians hav been here much before the advent of hinduism india….so please look at it on a larger perscpective…its the word GLOBALISATION.nobody is an insider or an outsider here.
irrespective of wateva happnd in d past,and wateva past events brought all of us to dis land,lets just have one sole reason 4 us being here rite now-advance our nation.
so please,lets not be religious zealots.lets channelize our pride and energy to the development of dis country.jai hind!

Gravatar image

suman sundriyal
September 29th, 2007, 12:25 am | #

Ram setu bridge is our HERITAGE.It should not be deatroyed. Congress has shown its vulgarity.it is a corroupt government. it is a wrong policy.

Gravatar image

suman sundriyal
September 29th, 2007, 12:27 am | #

ram setu bridge should not be destroyed.

Gravatar image

John Ralph
October 1st, 2007, 8:33 am | #

When the Monkeys build the bridge they wrote hey rama on the rocks, in order to let the Rocks Float (is their any evdence that shows this). Any one got pic of the bridge Under water. What happen to Lord Ramas Ancestors (family). Hanuman stated that he will live forever where is now.

Gravatar image

HEMRAJ SINGH
October 3rd, 2007, 3:08 pm | #

The fact of the exitence of Ram and its historical proof are two distinct issues and must not be confused. Lack of evidence does not mean that it never existed. The earth was flat before it was discovered to be round. Does that mean it wasn’t round before it was found to be that way?

Gravatar image

chandan kumar
October 27th, 2007, 1:22 pm | #

it is more of politics by congress to prove itself secular and development oriented.The bridge Ram Sethu(or Adams bridge) definetly should be a matter of more research by the ASI (Archelogical Survey of India)and be treted as a monumental site.The government should treat the sentiments of hindus more compassionately as it does in case of other monorities.
The benifits of the project must be acheived alternatively by keeping the environmental and archelogical concerns of that regions alive.The region should be left intact.

Gravatar image

Philosophia Inconsequentia » On the Expected Effects of Imbibing the Scientific and the Political Spirit in India
December 13th, 2007, 2:00 am | #

[...] passing we mention the recent works of others (most of which also collected in the review by Confused published in Desipundit [8]) like that of The Great Bong [9], Jaafna [10], Parseval [11], Reality Check [12], Suvrat Kher [...]

Gravatar image

Rakesh Thakurprasad Sharma
January 19th, 2008, 9:12 am | #

“Ram Setu” is our trust place with our god, now all Hindus they loose his trust in his god, they should remember that if its have support of 7000 years its have some guts so proudly we have to live become a Hindu , with 100% trust with our god.

Gravatar image

Unruled Notebook » Blog Archive » On the Expected Effects of Imbibing the Scientific and the Political Spirit in India
February 5th, 2008, 5:30 am | #

[...] passing we mention the recent works of others (most of which also collected in the review by Confused published in Desipundit [8]) like that of The Great Bong [9], Jaafna [10], Parseval [11], Reality Check [12], Suvrat Kher [...]

Gravatar image

SABU
March 18th, 2008, 3:53 am | #

ACCORDING TO VALMIKI’S RAMAYANA, RAM AND HIS MONKEYS BUILT RAM SETHU TO LANKA. IN ANCIENT TIMES LANKS MEANS JUST AN ISLAND. LANKA PREVIOUSLY WAS CALLED ANOTHER NAME AND NOT LANKA. SO VALMIKIS RAM SETHU IS NOT ADAMS BRIDGE. ALSO THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY INCIDENT FROM RAMAYANA IN THE EXISTING SRI-LANKA. HOW COME A NARTURALLY FORMED EARTH, BE CALLED RAM SETHU WITHOUT ANY PROOF OF RAMS EXISTANCE

Gravatar image

RJ
March 18th, 2008, 7:21 am | #

how come one one has found any weponds of lord Rama, hanuman, Lakshman and his army ?

Gravatar image

RJ
March 18th, 2008, 7:27 am | #

second question what about the the clothing (body armor). As anyone found any of these things.

Gravatar image

Prasad
March 24th, 2008, 9:09 pm | #

real bull shit….how can expect these things when the so called purana events are expected to happen before 18Lakh years ago…???

Gravatar image

Nonoscience » On the Expected Effects of Imbibing the Scientific and the Political Spirit in India
April 18th, 2008, 3:16 pm | #

[...] passing we mention the recent works of others (most of which also collected in the review by Confused published in Desipundit [8]) like that of The Great Bong [9], Jaafna [10], Parseval [11], Reality Check [12], Suvrat Kher [...]

Gravatar image

Nonoscience / On the Expected Effects of Imbibing the Scientific and the Political Spirit in India
August 14th, 2008, 2:00 pm | #

[...] passing we mention the recent works of others (most of which also collected in the review by Confused published in Desipundit [8]) like that of The Great Bong [9], Jaafna [10], Parseval [11], Reality Check [12], Suvrat Kher [...]

Leave a comment

Preview

Comments for this post will be closed on 14 August 2009.

Policy on Comments : Pages are cached so your comment may not appear instantly. Be patient. Please do not repost.

We reserve the right to edit or remove comments that we find offensive or against the spirit of DesiPundit. Also, obvious spammy and 'self-blog-whoring' links sneaked into comments will be mercilessly deleted.

Previous post Next post

DP Says / The DesiPundit Blog

Recently

DesiPundit on Twitter

For folks connected to the Twitterverse, you have one more 'person' to follow - DesiPundit. This Twitter feed will contain links to DesiPundit posts and occasional important updates. So if you use Twitter more often than your RSS ...

Previously

DP Says archives

Speak Up / Discussion Forum

Latest Topic

Popular Weekly Links

We are considering posting a list of our popular links (based on outbound clicks) every week. Would you be interested in such a list every week or it would be too redundant?

Previous Topics

Speak Up archives

The Indicast
Mello





Creative Commons License