To Build a Bridge or to Burn it

Amongst the many ways of measuring the progress our race has made, structures seem to be reliable barometers. An architectural masterpiece from a particular era is a true reflection of the capability and repertoire of the people from that era. The world is littered with such structures that collectively manage to span a large gamut of time. Sifting through the generations, it’s safe to say that the structures have evolved and so have we, as we continue to make genuine progress. Is there a benchmark we can’t better? Probably not. How about a certain 48-kilometer long bridge of floating stones across the ocean between India and Sri Lanka? That would take some serious beating. Without even getting into the specifics, just having the ability to be seen from space on its resume gives it the edge over all the other monuments. Satellite images show a thin, but definite strip of land connecting the two nations and it’s more than just a fascinating piece of geography. Going by its impressive credentials, and throwing in the fact that it is believed to be old beyond imagination, it begs the question, is it really man-made? A billion or so people believe it is.

The man in question of course is no ordinary man either. The legend of Ram is deeply entrenched in the culture and the minds of the people and what’s more, it just keeps growing. Forget all the monuments dedicated to him, the existence of the bridge alone is an incessant fuel supply to keep it burning for eternity. While numerous renditions of the Ramayana exist, the basic story surrounding the bridge, or Rama Setu as it’s called, remains largely the same. Ram, along with his army of monkeys, the vanar sena, built a bridge of floating stones across the ocean. He did this to get to Lanka to rescue his wife Sita, who had been held hostage by Ravana. The stones floating were ascribed to “Ram” being written on them. The present-day endpoints of the bridge fall on the Pamban Island (also known as Rameswaram Island), which is near the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, and the Mannar Island, which is close to the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.

Questioning whether the bridge is really man-made or not ultimately means questioning whether Ramayana really happened or not. The extravagant story is enough to convince rationalists that nothing of this sort ever happened but here’s the thing with stories: either they could just be figments of somebody’s imagination, or, they could be based on something much more real and believable. The latter could explain the version differences. Different people drawing inspiration from the same source and coming up with slightly different and extravagant versions but at its heart, containing the same plot. If we were to take divinity out of the equation, there’s every possibility that a more tempered and believable version of those stories could have happened for real. It wouldn’t have been exactly a golden deer but just a beautiful deer that Sita had taken fancy to, or Hanuman didn’t actually carry back the whole Dronagiri mountain but just a lot of herbs. Every impossibility can be watered down. The only one which can’t be watered down is the bridge. Try as you might, there’s no conceivable, rational way of getting a full-fledged army across the ocean without ridiculously altering the story. Does that mean they actually built a bridge? We are bound by the condition to keep things real and believable, and building such a bridge would have taken a superhuman effort. So, we are back to where we started but with slight reconstruction of the argument. The veracity of the Ramayana depends on whether the bridge is man-made or not. A lot is riding on the bridge now.

About time we burst this bubble of mythology and see things for what they are? I think so. Let me first disabuse you of any image you might have formed in your mind of a fully walkable bridge of stones across the ocean over which you can casually stroll to Sri Lanka without a visa. It is actually a long trail of limestone shoals. A shoal is formed by the accumulation of sand or any other sediment in a water body that rises from the bed of the water body to the surface. It is a submerged bank found where the ocean currents promote the deposition of sediments resulting in the region becoming shallower than the rest. In a nutshell, it is a natural feature. That should have put the debate to bed but the topic is like gunpowder on the floor. All it needs is the tiniest bit of spark and once it gets that, you can be sure that it will engulf the entire country.

In 2017, there was a sensationalist two-and-a-half minute promo released by Discovery’s Science Channel for an episode of one of its shows called What on Earth? In that little duration, it managed to entertain the notion that the bridge, or rather what’s left of it, could be man-made. The experts speaking in the video managed to ascertain this by dating the shoal and the rocks lying on it, claiming that the rocks, which are around 7000 years old, predate the sand which is only 4000 years old. Hence the rocks must have been brought by someone and placed on the ocean bed and the sand must have accumulated over the course of time. The whole thing screams superficial but, it had the effect that was expected. Coupled with equally sensationalist media coverage, it managed to send the entire country into a frenzy. A quick google search will tell you just how much it managed to infiltrate the internet. The fallacies in the argument? To start-off, the structures on top of the sand are believed to be corals which can be conveniently mistaken for stones. And corals predating the sand shouldn’t come as a surprise as they are the ones who would have trapped the sand after their formation in the first place. That’s one moot point. The other one is the timeline of the Ramayana. Nobody knows for certain when it happened, if it happened, but one thing many sources will agree upon is that it certainly wasn’t as recent as 7000 years ago. So either everybody turned a blind eye to the figure or quietly accepted it. It must be the former because the latter would trigger another groundbreaking debate. But given my mania for toning down the impossibilities, the timeline is hardly an issue. In fact, 7000 years ago seems just fine. It’s way more believable than, say, a million years ago.

The bridge though, remains as un-toned-down-able as ever. Yes, it’s not really a bridge. Yes, it’s a natural formation. Yes, there is no concrete evidence suggesting it is man-made. But the fact that something, just something exists and it happens to be exactly where the legend says makes it really difficult to just go with what science tells us. It could all be a coincidence and in all probability, it is just a coincidence. But it’s too big a one to be accepted so easily. There is the possibility that what’s left could just be a remnant of some sort of structure that might have existed. Temple records suggest the bridge used to be fully walkable and above sea level a few centuries ago before a cyclone completely submerged it.

Fast-forward to today, the bridge is not only of mythological, but also economic significance. Being risky to navigation, the bridge is blocking the only direct shipping route between India and Sri Lanka, forcing ships to take a roundabout route. The contentious Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project intended to do dredging in that region to create a continuous navigable route between the two countries to save on shipping time and fuel costs. As you might have guessed, it faced vehement opposition. As recently as January 2021, the Archaeological Survey of India approved an underwater exploration project proposed by National Institute of Oceanography, Goa to determine the age and explore the process of formation of the bridge.

Looking into the future, you’d expect science to have finally managed to penetrate even the most rigid minds and this debate would be all but water under the bridge. Well, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that how much ever scientific evidence you shove down their throats, people will still find ways to live in denial. On the surface, it might just appear as sentimentality and lack of pragmatism. But at its core, it’s a matter of belief. And we as a nation probably know better than most, the importance of keeping the faith of the people intact. Yes, there’s no logic behind it, but if we started putting logic over our emotions every time, it would be unbecoming of us as humans, wouldn’t it?