<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So we are asked to believe that the part of the archipelago/sandbank/Oldest ManMadeStructure that is between the Mainland and Pamban, is NOT part of the Ramar Sethu.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Belief is the ABC of non-science which Abrahamic theologies depend on. There is nothing to be beleived in the above matter. This is the basic geography of the Rameshwar island, which anyone even remotely familiar with Rameshwar knows. In fact commendable is your insistance that even after I have presented the google maps and actual phot of the bridge, you are not ready to understand the difference between Pamban Channel and Ramar Setu. I am ready to take my chances again, in attempting one more time to explain this to you, by showing a simpler map of the Island:
<img src='http://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/3116/2943852290100818794S500x500Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Hopefully this cartograph will be able to explain to you that Ramar Setu starts FROM Dhanush Koti, and NOT from Pamban as you repeatedly say. <b>I repeat</b>, Ram Setu's beginning point is Dhanush Koti which is on the eastern side of Rameshwar island, roughly 10 miles from the western side where Pamban ends. If this helps you, Rameshwaram island itself is NOT part of the Ramar Setu, but its western tip is one terminal point of the Setu. If you are not ready to understand even this, then I don't know where this dialog will go.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In other words, did Ramar and the entire Vanara Sena simply fly over, or did they ride across on the Dhanushkodi Passenger Train like I used to do?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is what happens when you refuse to even listen to experts like Kalyan ji or Dr. Ted Murthy who has spent his whole life studying oceans. Even a 12th class student familiar with the basics of oceanic geography will tell you the answer to this.
Have you ever heard of an ancient city called Dwarika which had once thrived, but later got submerged into the sea - and remains of which are now being excavated from several miles off the coast of Gujarat? Or why go that far back in history, have you heard about a submerged fortess few miles into the ocean from the shore of Malabar? Or have you heard of the lost temples of Mahabalipuram off the eastern coast?
Looks like you missed out on all the debate that is going on about global warming. You might have learnt this about Oceans. ASs is its dharma, Oceans keep creating and swamping islands, with the rise and fall of their water levels.
Rameshwaram, it is more than just possible by looking at its shape, may not even have been an island at some time, instead a tip of the mainland peninsula itself, or a rocky delta kind of geography. That is exactly why I had sited the records of Malik Kafuur's travels to Rameshwaram, as he had no difficulty raiding Rameshwar 8 centuries back - even when there was no Indira Gandhi Bridge. So even then, the gap might not have been that large as it is now. Tradition even has it that people used to just walk by on the natural bridge a few centuries back, upto Rameshwaram and even farther. I you challenge this, then I am ready to do some hard work and site proofs - though I wish we dont need that, since it is a very straight forward behaviour of Ocean.
If you will (as a well-wisher, I wish one day you will) gratuate from Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana to Valmiki's Ramayana or other Ramayanas (thanks to Valmiki for making sure of mentioning the geographies rather more clearly) - although he did mention a few islands in the Ocean when Sri Hanuman traveled to Lanka, somewhere in the middle of the Ocean, but no islands on the path of bridge when Nala designed it. A perfectly straight line, 100 yojana in length, with Heavy stones, large trees he said. Starting point, near Dhanushkoti where there is the ancient temple. Even on his way back, here he worshipped Shiva, with Sita establishing the Shiv Linga known as Sri Ramalingam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->My mother always used to show us those huge boulder lying under the Pamban bridge and tell us the legends, and I used to wonder at the biceps on those heroic Vanaras who tossed them there.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You need not wonder so much, if you read Valmiki Ramayan. You will see the light if shown even from afar. Maharshi Valmiki says in Yuddha Kandam, Sarga 22, shloka 58:
hastimaatraan mahaakaayaaH paaSaaNaamshca mahaabalaaH
parvataamshca samutpaaTya <b>yantraiH parivahanti</b> cha
"...And then, those heroic Vanaras, who were of mighty strength and huge body, were emloyed in uprooting large-sized rocks from mountains and transporting these over equipments for conveying ("yantraiH parivahanti")..."
So doubtless, Valmiki does say "those Vanaras who were of might strength", but does also mention mechanical help in carrying huge rocks. Our respected mother may have rightly pointed you to the rocks. If Bridge has to ever be constructed from Dhanushkoti eastwards, then Vanaras would of course have to carry rocks FROM western side of dhanushkoti. (In fact who knows because they carried so much rock, that a gap started which later widened so much? I am just thinking whether it is an impossible explanation)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->having left his shoes in Ayodhya as Bodhi so accurately points out<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No Narayanan, those were not my words. I did not say Sri Ram left his padukas behind in Ayodhya. He did carry his along, until his noble younger brother Bharat came to him and requested to give him his charan padukas so that Bharat may administer the kingdom of Koshal in Sri Ram's name by proxy.
Now this is my speculation only: While Sri Ram may have had the padukas with him, he may not have been wearing these, as was the explicit condition of his Mother Kaikeyi that Ram goes in Vanavasi attire. More research needed.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So there goes any iota of legitimacy behind this obstruction campaign. "Bodhi" is willing to let that FIRST MILE of the Ramar Sethu - that FIRST MILE that was so heroically built so long ago, be cut, and lie cut, under the Pamban bridge, but is all cut up, no pun intended, about the proposed channel a dozen miles out in the sea.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you dont like my name, I have no problem with it. All names we may wrongly think as our "identity", are false. By the way I like yours very much. Very much indeed. It begins with 'Nar' the man, and reminds the potential of the Nar which is Narayan. If I even have a son, Narayan is a very good name that I would consider. And also I will be humble, I am NOT Sri Kalyan Ji, had I been how would I have so much time to spare! ALthough I sure wish, he would have continued on the forum.
But back to the point, I hope to have clarified that if by the "first mile" you mean Pamban passage, even a most ordinary Hindu (by ordinary I mean non-academic regular like myself) who ever had the awesome fortune to visit teerthraj Rameshwaram, knows that Sri Ramar Setu starts from Dhanush Koti, which is 10 miles to the east of port of Pamban.
I will have to stop here for now to go back to other matters of life. Hope to provide rest of the reply later, though who knows what happens the next moment.
May Sri Ram give sadbuddhi to all.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Belief is the ABC of non-science which Abrahamic theologies depend on. There is nothing to be beleived in the above matter. This is the basic geography of the Rameshwar island, which anyone even remotely familiar with Rameshwar knows. In fact commendable is your insistance that even after I have presented the google maps and actual phot of the bridge, you are not ready to understand the difference between Pamban Channel and Ramar Setu. I am ready to take my chances again, in attempting one more time to explain this to you, by showing a simpler map of the Island:
<img src='http://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/3116/2943852290100818794S500x500Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Hopefully this cartograph will be able to explain to you that Ramar Setu starts FROM Dhanush Koti, and NOT from Pamban as you repeatedly say. <b>I repeat</b>, Ram Setu's beginning point is Dhanush Koti which is on the eastern side of Rameshwar island, roughly 10 miles from the western side where Pamban ends. If this helps you, Rameshwaram island itself is NOT part of the Ramar Setu, but its western tip is one terminal point of the Setu. If you are not ready to understand even this, then I don't know where this dialog will go.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In other words, did Ramar and the entire Vanara Sena simply fly over, or did they ride across on the Dhanushkodi Passenger Train like I used to do?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is what happens when you refuse to even listen to experts like Kalyan ji or Dr. Ted Murthy who has spent his whole life studying oceans. Even a 12th class student familiar with the basics of oceanic geography will tell you the answer to this.
Have you ever heard of an ancient city called Dwarika which had once thrived, but later got submerged into the sea - and remains of which are now being excavated from several miles off the coast of Gujarat? Or why go that far back in history, have you heard about a submerged fortess few miles into the ocean from the shore of Malabar? Or have you heard of the lost temples of Mahabalipuram off the eastern coast?
Looks like you missed out on all the debate that is going on about global warming. You might have learnt this about Oceans. ASs is its dharma, Oceans keep creating and swamping islands, with the rise and fall of their water levels.
Rameshwaram, it is more than just possible by looking at its shape, may not even have been an island at some time, instead a tip of the mainland peninsula itself, or a rocky delta kind of geography. That is exactly why I had sited the records of Malik Kafuur's travels to Rameshwaram, as he had no difficulty raiding Rameshwar 8 centuries back - even when there was no Indira Gandhi Bridge. So even then, the gap might not have been that large as it is now. Tradition even has it that people used to just walk by on the natural bridge a few centuries back, upto Rameshwaram and even farther. I you challenge this, then I am ready to do some hard work and site proofs - though I wish we dont need that, since it is a very straight forward behaviour of Ocean.
If you will (as a well-wisher, I wish one day you will) gratuate from Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana to Valmiki's Ramayana or other Ramayanas (thanks to Valmiki for making sure of mentioning the geographies rather more clearly) - although he did mention a few islands in the Ocean when Sri Hanuman traveled to Lanka, somewhere in the middle of the Ocean, but no islands on the path of bridge when Nala designed it. A perfectly straight line, 100 yojana in length, with Heavy stones, large trees he said. Starting point, near Dhanushkoti where there is the ancient temple. Even on his way back, here he worshipped Shiva, with Sita establishing the Shiv Linga known as Sri Ramalingam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->My mother always used to show us those huge boulder lying under the Pamban bridge and tell us the legends, and I used to wonder at the biceps on those heroic Vanaras who tossed them there.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You need not wonder so much, if you read Valmiki Ramayan. You will see the light if shown even from afar. Maharshi Valmiki says in Yuddha Kandam, Sarga 22, shloka 58:
hastimaatraan mahaakaayaaH paaSaaNaamshca mahaabalaaH
parvataamshca samutpaaTya <b>yantraiH parivahanti</b> cha
"...And then, those heroic Vanaras, who were of mighty strength and huge body, were emloyed in uprooting large-sized rocks from mountains and transporting these over equipments for conveying ("yantraiH parivahanti")..."
So doubtless, Valmiki does say "those Vanaras who were of might strength", but does also mention mechanical help in carrying huge rocks. Our respected mother may have rightly pointed you to the rocks. If Bridge has to ever be constructed from Dhanushkoti eastwards, then Vanaras would of course have to carry rocks FROM western side of dhanushkoti. (In fact who knows because they carried so much rock, that a gap started which later widened so much? I am just thinking whether it is an impossible explanation)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->having left his shoes in Ayodhya as Bodhi so accurately points out<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No Narayanan, those were not my words. I did not say Sri Ram left his padukas behind in Ayodhya. He did carry his along, until his noble younger brother Bharat came to him and requested to give him his charan padukas so that Bharat may administer the kingdom of Koshal in Sri Ram's name by proxy.
Now this is my speculation only: While Sri Ram may have had the padukas with him, he may not have been wearing these, as was the explicit condition of his Mother Kaikeyi that Ram goes in Vanavasi attire. More research needed.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So there goes any iota of legitimacy behind this obstruction campaign. "Bodhi" is willing to let that FIRST MILE of the Ramar Sethu - that FIRST MILE that was so heroically built so long ago, be cut, and lie cut, under the Pamban bridge, but is all cut up, no pun intended, about the proposed channel a dozen miles out in the sea.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you dont like my name, I have no problem with it. All names we may wrongly think as our "identity", are false. By the way I like yours very much. Very much indeed. It begins with 'Nar' the man, and reminds the potential of the Nar which is Narayan. If I even have a son, Narayan is a very good name that I would consider. And also I will be humble, I am NOT Sri Kalyan Ji, had I been how would I have so much time to spare! ALthough I sure wish, he would have continued on the forum.
But back to the point, I hope to have clarified that if by the "first mile" you mean Pamban passage, even a most ordinary Hindu (by ordinary I mean non-academic regular like myself) who ever had the awesome fortune to visit teerthraj Rameshwaram, knows that Sri Ramar Setu starts from Dhanush Koti, which is 10 miles to the east of port of Pamban.
I will have to stop here for now to go back to other matters of life. Hope to provide rest of the reply later, though who knows what happens the next moment.
May Sri Ram give sadbuddhi to all.