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9°07′16″N 79°31′18″E / 9.1210°N 79.5217°E / 9.1210; 79.5217

Adam's Bridge, known in India as Rama's Bridge or Rama Setu, is a chain of limestone shoals, between the islands of Mannar, near northwestern Sri Lanka, and Rameswaram, off the southeastern coast of India.

The bridge is 30 miles (48 km) long and separates the Gulf of Mannar (southwest) from the Palk Strait (northeast). Some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is very shallow, being only 3 ft to 30 ft (1 m to 10 m) deep in places, which hinders navigation.

A ferry service linking the island and port of Rameswaram in India with Talaimannar in Sri Lanka has been suspended for some time because of the fighting between Sri Lankan government forces and the separatist LTTE. The Pamban Bridge links Rameswaram island with mainland India.

Etymology

The name, Rama's Bridge or Rama Setu (Sanskrit/Tamil; setu: bridge) for the shoal of islands derives from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, in which a bridge from Rameswaram was built by allies of Rama that he used to reach Lanka, and rescue his abducted wife Sita from the asura king, Ravana. The sea separating India and Sri Lanka is called Sethusamudram, based on the same episode.

According to an Islamic legend, the Biblical Adam used the bridge to reach Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka, where he stood repentant on one foot for 1,000 years, leaving a large hollow mark resembling a foot print. Both the peak and the bridge are named after this legend.

Geological history

Geological evidence indicates that the bridge comprised a land connection between India and Sri Lanka at one point during the Wisconsin glaciation.

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, which according to famous ornithologist Sidney Dillon Ripley supports the vicariance model for speciation in some birds of the Indian sub-continent.

Religious beliefs

What are described as "Hindu news services" by the Hindustan Times claimed that NASA images serve as evidence that events narrated in the Ramayana epic actually took place. Besides NASA's imagery, they cite geological evidence as proof of their claims. However, NASA has distanced itself from the claims related to the epic Ramayana: "The images may be ours, but their interpretation is certainly not ours. Remote sensing images or photographs from orbit cannot provide direct information about the origin or age of a chain of islands, and certainly cannot determine whether humans were involved in producing any of the patterns seen." They state there is no evidence of the "bridge" being anything but a natural series of sandbanks, and noted there is no evidence of human presence in the Indian subcontinent more than 350,000 years ago

Various estimates were made regarding the age of the bridge and the method of formation by Hindu archeologists and geologists and a team from CRS (Center for Remote Sensing):

• Rama's bridge could only be 3,500 years old according to the Centre for Remote Sensing (CRS) of Bharathidasan University in Tiruchi.
• Rama Setu is NOT a natural formation: Dr. Badrinarayanan, former director of Geological Survey of India and a member of the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) says Rama's Bridge was not a natural formation.
• The Hindu also published a report (quoting N. Ramanujam, Head, Post Graduate Department of Geology and Research Centre, V.O. Chidambaram College) saying that Rama's Bridge is a natural phenomenon and not a man-made one.

Infrastructure development

Due to shallow waters, Adam's Bridge presents a formidable hindrance to navigation through the Palk strait. Though trade across the India-Sri Lanka divide has been active since at least the first millennium BCE, it has been limited to small boats and dinghies. Larger ocean going vessels from the West have had to navigate around Sri Lanka to reach India' eastern coast. Eminent British geographer Major James Rennell, who surveyed the region as a young officer in the late eighteenth century, suggested that a "navigable passage could be maintained by dredging the strait of Ramisseram ". However little notice was given to his proposal, perhaps because it came from "so young and unknown an officer", and the idea was only revived 60 years later. Efforts were made in 1838 to dredge the canal, but did not succeed in keeping the passage navigable for any vessels except those with a light draft.

Recently the Government of India has approved a multi-million dollar Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project that aims to create a ship channel across the Palk Strait. The plan is to dredge the shallow ocean floor near the Dhanushkodi end of Rama's Bridge to create enough leeway allowing ships to pass through the channel instead of having to go around the island of Sri Lanka. It is expected to save nearly 30 hours' shipping time by cutting over 400 km off the voyage. However, efforts to conserve the heritage of the bridge has been initiated under the Ram Karmabhoomi movement; and there is fear that the large amount of dredging needed would damage coral reefs in the area, directly and by stirring up sediment. World Monuments Fund has recommended that the Government of India send scuba divers underwater to collect sand deposits from the bridge for analysis .

See also

• Kumari Kandam
• Pamban channel
• Kanyakumari

References

1. ^ "Adam's bridge". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
2. ^ Room, Adrian (2006). Placenames of the World. McFarland & Company. pp. p. 19. ISBN 0786422483. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
3. Ripley, S. Dillon (1990). "Patterns of Speciation in Indian Birds". Journal of Biogeography. 17 (6): pp. 639-648. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
4. NASA images find 1,750,000 year old man-made bridge, rense.com
5. NASA images discover ancient bridge between India & Sri Lanka, vnn.org
6. NASA images discover ancient bridge between India & Sri Lanka, indolink.com
7. "Ramasamy explains that the land/beaches were formed between Ramanathapuram and Pamban because of the long shore drifting currents which moved in an anti-clockwise direction in the north and clockwise direction in the south of Rameswaram and Talaimannar about 3,500 years ago. ... But as the carbon dating of the beaches roughly matches the dates of Ramayana, its link to the epic needs to be explored, he adds."
8. "Such a natural formation is impossible. Unless somebody has transported them and dumped them there, those reefs could not have come there. Some boulders were so light that they could float on water."
9. It's not a man-made structure, hindu.com
10. Francis, Jr., Peter (2002). Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 082482332X.
11. Rodd, Rennell (1930). "Major James Rennell. Born 3 December 1742. Died 20 March 1830". The Geographical Journal. 75 (4): pp. 289-299. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project
• Ram Setu – information, facts, Sethusamudram project

• Landforms of Sri Lanka
• Locations in Hindu mythology
• Peninsulas of India