This assumes significance in the backdrop of the raging political controversy over the Sethusamudram Project. Referring to the Ramayana, the ASI affidavit said there is no historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the character, or the occurrences of the events, depicted in the Ramayana.
In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the ASI said the Centre stated that the contents of the Valmiki Ramayana, Tuslidas's Ramcharit Manas and other mythological texts cannot be a historical record to prove the existence of the characters mentioned in the book.
The ASI said the Ramar Sethu is not a man-made structure, but rather a natural formation made up of shoals/sand bars, which are possessed of their particular shape and form due to several millennia of wave action and sedimentation.
The ASI affidavit was in response to two writ petitions filed by Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy and one Ram Gopalan, who had sought an assurance from the government that there would be no destruction of the Ramar Sethu during the construction of Sethusamudram Project.
The Supreme Court on August 31 put on hold demolition of the Ramar Sethu, a mythical bridge situated south-east off Rameswaram, connecting the Talaimanar coast of Sri Lanka, for carrying out the ongoing Sethusamudram Project.
Additional solicitor-general Gopal Subramanium made repeated pleas that the apex court could wait till Centre would file its affi davit. But the Bench wanted assurance from the Centre that it will not carry any activity at the site which will damage the Ramar Sethu till the matter was heard.
"If you (Centre) are in a position to say that ongoing construction would not in any way damage Ramaar Sethu we will consider you," the Bench observed several times during an hour-long hearing.
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