Centre Sanctions Underwater Research Into Ram Setu Origins

NEW DELHI: The government has given approval to an underwater research project to ascertain the origins of the Ram Setu.

Ram Setu is a 48-kilometer-long chain of limestone sandbars which start from the Dhanushkodi tip of Pamban Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and end at Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.

Ram Setu is also known as Rama's Bridge or Adam's Bridge or Nala Setu. Pamban Island is also known as Rameswaram Island.

The bridge holds religious importance because of the Ramayana epic - one of the two major Hindu epics of ancient India.

The underwater exploration proposal was approved last month by the Central Advisory Board on Archaeology. The Central Advisory Board falls under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

The study will be conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Goa. This study will help in establishing the age of the Ramayana period and focus on the method behind the construction of Ram Setu. It will also help determine the presence of any submerged habitations around Ram Setu.

The proposal reads, "The historicity and the date of 'Ramayana' remain a debatable subject among historians, archaeologists and scientists. It is proposed to carry out scientific and underwater archaeological studies to understand the nature and formation of the Ram Setu and its surrounding area."

The exploration is expected to begin this year itself in view of the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

NIO director Sunil Kumar Singh said that the proposed study will be based on archaeological antiquities, radiometric and thermoluminescence (TL) dating for geological time scale and other supporting environmental data.

The NIO research vessels, Sindhu Sadhana or Sindhu Sankalp, will be deployed to collect samples of the sediment from 35 to 40 metres below the water level.

Sindhu Sadhna was launched in 2014 and is India's first-ever indigenously built research vessel set up with equipment for data collection, echo sounders, acoustic doppler, profiler, autonomous weather station and air quality monitors.

The ship is also equipped with other latest world-class gear in the field of ocean technology and research and can stay underwater for nearly 45 days.

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