Adam's Bridge

NASA satellite photo: India on top, Sri Lanka at the bottom

Adam's Bridge, also known as Rama's Bridge or Rama Setu is a chain of limestone shoals, between Pamban Island, also known as Rameswaram Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.

Quotes

• Setubandha means bridge of the ocean. It is the dike of Rama, the son of Dasaratha, which he built from the continent to the castle Lanka.
  • Alberuni quoted in Lal, B. B. (2008). Rāma, his historicity, mandir, and setu: Evidence of literature, archaeology, and other sciences. New Delhi: Aryan Books International. p. 69 ff.

• Marco Polo... refers to... Setabund Rameshwara.
  • M Polo, quoted in Lal, B. B. (2008). Rāma, his historicity, mandir, and setu: Evidence of literature, archaeology, and other sciences. New Delhi: Aryan Books International. p. 69 ff.

• From the mountain of gold (Meru) to (Rama's) Bridge.
  • Hampi inscription of Krishnadevaraya, ca 1508 CE. Translation by E. Hultzsch in 1892. quoted in Lal, B. B. (2008). Rāma, his historicity, mandir, and setu: Evidence of literature, archaeology, and other sciences. New Delhi: Aryan Books International. p. 69 ff.

• “In fact, Ram, or Rãma, was the sovereign of Ayodhya, or Audh, a city in the most ancient times of wonderful extent and magnificence, as may be inferred from the present Lucnow’s having been, according to the Brahmin accounts, only a lodge for one of its gates; that he is celebrated as a conqueror of the highest renown, and the deliverer of nations from tyrants, as well as of his consort Sita, from the giant Ravan, king of Lanca; that he was commander-in-chief of a numerous and intrepid race of those large monkeys, which some of our naturalists have denominated Indian satyrs; that the name of his general was Hanumat, the prince of satyrs; and that, by the wonderful activity of such an army, a bridge of rocks was raised over the sea, a part of which the Hindoos suppose still to remain; and he thinks it is probably that series of rocks, which, by Mussulmen and Portuguese, is mistakenly called Adam’s, for it should be Rama’s, bridge. “Might not,” subjoins Sir William, “this army of satyrs have been only a race of mountaineers, whom Rama, if such a monarch ever existed, had civilized.”
  • ‘History of Hindustan’, Thomas Maurice. ..quoted in Kishore, Kunal (2016). Ayodhyā revisited. ch 11.