Ramayana – Rama Setu {Ep.199} Stories From India – Podcast

Today’s story is from the Ramayana about how Ram, Laxman, and the Vanars finally crossed the ocean to reach Lanka by building the Rama Setu(bridge). We’ll also learn why there’s a desert in Rajasthan! And this explanation is a lot more exciting than Geologists would have us believe.

Introduction

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back into the Ramayana.

The Ramayana is one of two major epics in Indian mythology, the other being the Mahabharata which we have also covered on this show. The Ramayana begins with Ram. Despite being the crown prince of Ayodhya he was denied the opportunity to become King. His stepmother Kaikeyi pressured her husband into sending Ram into exile for 14 years. Ram went. But not alone. Sita, his wife and Laxman, his brother, went along. 

Ram was an avatar of Vishnu, one of the holy trinity in Indian mythology. Vishnu is the preserver of the Universe, creating a kind of balance between Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer. Shameless plug here, but Brahma is also my dad.

Ram, Laxman and Sita left Ayodhya and spent many years surviving in a forest. For the trio life was sometimes exciting but often exhausting. And that was because they faced one challenge after another. There was always a demon or a demoness looking to eat them or enslave them or kidnap Sita. They of course managed to fight off all such challenges. Until the day Sita was abducted by Ravana. Ravana was the ruler of Lankaand the mega villain of this epic. If you want a modern analogy, take Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter books. Now imagine Voldemort with 10 heads, so 10 times as evil. Thankfully, without 10 times as many horcruxes.

Following some clues here and there, Ram and Laxman searched for Sita. They got help from the Vanars – a kingdom of monkeys led by Sugriva, their King, and Hanuman who was Sugriva’s adviser and right hand Vanar. Hanuman looked for Sita, and found her across an ocean in Ravana’s kingdom of Lanka. She refused his offer of going back with him. She insisted that Ram should himself make the trip to Lanka, defeat Ravana and take her back, in full honor. 

So Hanuman took her message back to Ram, but first he burned most of the city down.

We’ll continue the story after Hanuman returned to the Vanar base camp. And when they heard about where Sita was, Ram, Laxman, Sugreeva and the entire Vanar army embarked on a road trip to Lanka. The only problem was that there was no road to get them there. In case you haven’t seen a map, there’s a substantial bit of water between India and Lanka. Across a 30 km stretch is the shortest

That’s where they met Vibhishana, Ravana’s brother. Vibhishana had decided to switch sides. Because Ravana didn’t want to take Vibhishana’s advice of returning Sita to Ram. You might say they didn’t see eye to eye, except you should know that Ravana had ten pairs of eyes – seeing as he had ten heads. I guess it was impossible for anyone to see eye to eye with him. I guess you could say that the ultimate snake, or Aadishesh nag, comes close, but with just seven heads that’s still not enough.

Anyway, we’re resuming the story here with Ram, Laxman, Sugriva, Hanuman, Vibhishana, and all of the millions of Vanars trying to figure out a way to get across the ocean.

Now they had an important task ahead – which was to cross the ocean. This was no time for interruptions. And yet an interruption is exactly what they faced. It was an asura, flying through the sky.

All eyes turned to Vibhishana as if to ask who this stranger was.

But Vibhishana knew this new Asura wasn’t a buddy of his who had just lagged behind. No. This was Ravana’s messenger, his most trusted ambassador. The messenger had wings like a bird, so he was able to hover in mid-air as he addressed them. Specifically, he completely ignored Ram and addressed Sugreeva only. 

He said his name was Shuka. “All this is a lost cause. Your army will never be able to cross the Ocean. Why do you want to waste your time? Go back home instead. Think about it – with all you Vanars here, your home is left unguarded. What if someone takes it over?”

“Who’s going to try? Now that Ram and Laxman already defeated Khar and Dooshan, and the rest of you Asuras fled to Lanka”

Shuka tried a different tactic. “Ravana can be a powerful ally! He was friends with your brother, don’t you know?”

The same brother whom I had assassinated?” Sugreeva asked, dryly.

“Why does that matter? Family is family, you know! Any brother of Ravana’s friend is a friend of Ravana’s”

“Funny you should say that” Vibhishana interjected.

After that the talks broke down. Some of the Vanars leapt into the air and grabbed Shuka and captured him. They would have harmed him rather badly if it hadn’t been for Ram’s intervention. It was against the code to harm a messenger, Rama said. Which was true and all no doubt, but it left the Vanars disappointed. This was the first opportunity to do something against these villains. Hanuman had done plenty when he went to Lanka, but what about the rest of them?  When would they get the chance to do something about this?

But Sugreeva backed Ram, which is why they only held this messenger prisoner. Some of the Vanar scientists began examining Shuka to see if there was a possibility of learning and adapting this wing technology to help the Vanaras.

With Shuka out of their minds, they again concentrated on the problem of getting across the ocean. They had shortlisted their ideas down to two: one was to ask nicely, the other was to force the ocean to open up a pathway for them.

Rama asked nicely. For three days straight. He sat by the shore, folded his hands and asked the ocean to clear a path for them. Nothing happened.

The ocean level remained the same, and what was worse, there was no acknowledgement from the Ocean that Ram’s request had even been heard.

Nala chimed in that they should have tried his idea of using hot air balloons. And Jambavan said the same thing about boats. But Laxman reminded them of the second idea – to twist the Ocean’s arm into clearing a path for them.

Jambavan seemed to not understand. “Duh! The ocean’s all liquidy. It doesn’t have an arm for you to twist”

But figuratively twisting the Ocean’s arm is exactly what Ram was doing now, as he readied his bow and carefully selected an arrow. Laxman looked over his shoulder, saw the arrow he had selected, and remarked that the dry-o-matic 2000 with the desert-ifier attachment was an excellent choice in this case!

Ram calmly added that that was not all. This would agitate the sea creatures in the Ocean. Also this wasn’t meant to dry up the whole ocean, just this little portion between here and Lanka. But this would teach the arrogant Ocean a lesson.

Ram prepared the arrow and fired it. But just as he let go of the arrow, the Ocean God appeared in front of him. Now if you were expecting the Ocean to look like it did in Disney’s Moana movie, you’d be surprised. The Ocean god looked nothing like in that movie. It was a richly-dressed person who rose from the Ocean who spoke like a normal human. He handed out his business card as he introduced himself as the Ocean god.

Ram put his arrow on pause now that the Ocean had appeared. The arrow immediately froze in place. Ram was willing to listen, but the Ocean had to make it quick, because the arrow had an auto-unpause feature.

The Ocean God did make it quick. “I can’t clear a path for you. When I heard you praying, I immediately started building a bridge support from the Ocean floor. But these things take a very long time. Even with all the sea creatures helping. Geologic evolution is slow.”

“How slow? How much longer will it take?” Laxman asked

“Oh about a million years, give or take a few thousand”

That timeline was not going to work for them. Rama picked up the remote to un-pause the arrow, but the Ocean panicking quickly raised its hands in appeal. “Don’t. Please. There is an alternative. Your chief engineer amongst the Vanaras – Nala”

Laxman was skeptical “not his hot air balloon idea again”

“No, not at all,” the Ocean replied. “Nala is the son of Vishwakarma, the celestial architect who can construct anything. Well, Nala has inherited all of his father’s abilities. He’ll build you a bridge”

“That’s funny now that you mention it. Yes – I can totally build a bridge. It’s basic architecture and engineering 101 – my daddy taught me. I’ve had so much practice on scale models, and I even helped him out on some of his projects – I can totally do it!”

“You didn’t think to mention this before?” Sugreeva glowered at him.

Nala just shrugged. “I just forgot. It’s not a big deal. Look at Hanuman – he forgot he could fly. How do you forget something like that?”

Hanuman had a curse on him that had made him forget, Sugreeva reminded.

“A mere technicality. Anyway if I should build this bridge, I had better get started. This will take time. The pathway itself is easy but designing and building the columns will take some time”

The Ocean God spoke up and said that that’s where he could help. He would hold up the bridge. No columns required. And because in his ocean form, he could apply uniform force across the entire length of the bridge, there would be no buckling. It would even be better than a traditional bridge with supporting columns.

So that was the plan. They agreed to get started right away. But there was one problem.

Ram’s arrow that he had fired. It was stuck frozen in mid-air right now. It couldn’t be withdrawn. It was too late for that now. 

The Ocean had a solution for that too. Just redirect it. North of here, about where Rajasthan will be in the future. There’s a little inland sea with lakes, rivers. It’s an ecological paradise really.

And why do you want to destroy it then? Ram asked

It’s right now full of evil people. If you were to redirect your arrows there it’ll help that area reset.

So that’s what Ram did. He redirected the arrow to land in the area that the Ocean provided GPS coordinates for. That immediately turned the Maru area in Rajasthan into a desert. So there you have it – now you know why there’s a desert there. It wasn’t a terrible thing ecologically. Because it evolved other types of life to thrive there.

Back at the southern shore meanwhile, Sugreeva ordered his army of monkeys to bring all the raw material they could get their hands on. Rocks, branches, tree trunks. But I imagine there are rocks falling into the Ocean all the time, from cliffs, or from other people in other parts of the world trying to build bridges without the blessing of the Ocean God. To make it easy for the ocean to know which rocks to support and which ones to sink, the Vanars wrote Ram’s name on each rock.

The ocean kept its promise. He held up the bridge, and it was strong enough to carry the entire Vanar army. 4 days was all it took to construct the bridge. In the end, the Vanar army had assembled at the Lankan shore.

Ram told Sugreeva that now they could release Ravana’s messenger. With a message back to his emperor. It was a simple message, not like the elaborate one Ravana had said. This one simply said. “Have you looked out of your window? We’re the ones waving”. But Shuka didn’t even have to say anything. One look at him, and everyone in Ravana’s war council realized that Shuka hadn’t flown back home. He had walked. Which meant, their enemy was at the gates.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Over the years, there has been a lot of speculation about the Rama Setu or Rama’s bridge. I guess it’s not called Nala’s bridge or the Vanara bridge for the same reason that the Maharana Pratap Bridge or the Mahatma Gandhi Road isn’t named for the persons who actually built it.

There is a natural limestone formation called Adam’s bridge, which isn’t actually a bridge but a limestone formation. I guess the Ocean God never stopped the sedimentation process that he had started. There is a photograph taken from the space station that nicely shows the bridge. It’s on the website sfipodcast.com check it out.

It was thought that until as recently as 1480 it was possible to walk from India to Lanka. That’s a really long time after the Ramayana for the Ocean God to continue his promise. But a cyclone and subsequent rain seems to have disturbed the bridge. It isn’t really possible to walk across anymore. Many long distance swimmers have crossed from India to Lanka or vice versa though.

But that doesn’t mean large ships can navigate this area. Large ships approaching from the Arabian Sea have to go all the way around Sri Lanka to get to the eastern coast of India.

There are also pumice rocks called Rama Setu rocks, which are observed to float in water. That should not be surprising because of their volcanic origin, when gas bubbles get trapped inside – making them lightweight and buoyant. The Vanars used all kinds of rocks they could find, but I bet these pumice rocks would have made their work, and the Ocean’s work a little easier.

Check out the links in the show notes for other Ramayana episodes. Those are also linked on the site.

Valmiki was the author of the Ramayana. We covered his origin story in Episode 6 – Fish Highwayman

The Ramayana kicks off in Episode 7 – Kingdom by Horse. Episode 15 – Rishi vs Rishi: Un-civil war! and Episode 16 – Six….teen Flags are about Rama and Laxman’s encounter with Vishwamitra

A flashback to Dasharath’s past is in Episode 24 – Promises made, hearts broken

Ram, Laxman, and Sita begin their exile in Episode 30 – Banished! and continue it in Episode 41 – Forest Life and Episode 64 – The First Kidnapping of Sita

They encounter Shoorpanakha in Episode 78 – Ramayana – An Indecent Proposal

We have also covered episodes that aren’t part of the main storyline but feature some central Ramayana characters:

Hanuman’s origin story is in Episode 25 – Up, Up, and Away!

Episode 55 – Saturnine is about an encounter between Shani and Ravana.

Episode 81 – Ramayana – Wolverine Claws is the origin story of Ravana and Shoorpanakha.

And Episode 92 – Ramayana – Shanta is the story of Ram and Laxman’s sister – Shanta.

We met Jayant – Indra’s son in Episode 182 and Kakbhushundi in Episode 185.

Episode 101 – Ramayana – A Wild Stag Chase explained how Ravana engineered a diversion so he could abduct Sita. In Episode 112 Ram and Laxman got their first hint of what had happened to Sita and also were told that Sugriva could help them

In Episode 118, Ram and Laxman learned more about Sugriva and Vali’s rivalry before finally meeting Hanuman and ensuring Sugriva’s victory in Episode 125 – Ramayana – Sugriva and Vali. Hanuman met Sampati in Episode 132 and then crossed the ocean in Episode 142 and infiltrated Lanka in Episode 156. Vali was also the character of the Week in Episode 21. Hanuman burned Lanka in Episode 168. In Episode 190, .

Jambavan was character of the week in Episode 2. 

Jatayu and Sampaati’s story is mentioned in the Character of the Week section of Episode 11.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll actually do a story about me! Yes, in case you forgot I am a mythological character myself. Often the stories I tell you are eyewitness accounts. And occasionally, I feature in them. Well, that is what we’ll see in the next story. Now I may be often seen in the company of other Gods and Goddesses. But in this story, you’ll see me shying away from that. But at the end of it rub elbows with most Gods and Goddesses in Indian Mythology. In one such situation I have a 

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Veena, Aarush and Rez – thanks for the feedback. I’ll be doing those stories on the Jataka tales, the Panchatantra, the Singhasan Battisi, Tenali Raman and Vikram Betaal.

I have set up a poll. Do vote for the category you’re most interested in. 

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or tweet @sfipodcast, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.

Be sure to subscribe to the show to get notified automatically of new episodes.

A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!