The general impression among Indians, as taught by temple preachers and tourist guides at pilgrimage Centres is: rAvaNa's Lanka was today's Sri Lanka. They believe, not allowing others to touch the sentiment, that Shri rAmA and his brother lakshmaNa built a bridge 1600 km. long in 15 days and without any engineering equipment, aided by monkeys. As evidence, they show the Adam's Bridge, series of sand dunes and coral reefs between rAmESvaram-pAmban-dhanushkODi on Indian side and the talaimannAr on the Sri Lankan Side.
At some of the blog-posts already made by me here, I expressed my views with quotes from vAlmIki rAmAyaN, as under:
1. The moment rAma entered citrakUT, after crossing Ganga and Yamuna Rivers, he was told by Sages that the local administrators of the place were khara and dUshaNa, representatives of rAvaNa. It meant that rAma entered the kingdom of rAvaNa. Thus, if rAvaNa was the ruler of citrakUT on the madhya-pradEsh - uttar pradEsh border, how can we take him as ruler of the Sri Lankan Island, 2000 km. away? Besides rAvaNa came on a mule driven cart, to abduct SitA by sending the bewitching deer mArIca. Obviously rAvaNa was the ruler of the North MP, jhArkhand areas or the South bank of the Ganga river.
2. I strongly felt that what hanumAn leaped over or probably swam or leaped/swam alternately, was the ganga river itself, to reach some ganga island.
3. Identfication of vindhyAncal as the mountain ranges of mirZApur, on the Eastern side of Allhabad, has already that kishkindha was on the Northern side of mirzApur. Anyway, the vindhyAs cannot be the vindhyAs of Itarsi and nAgpur.
4. I repeatedly felt that almost every place connected with vAlmIki rAmAyan was on the northern side of the line of Cancer i.e. 23 degrees Northern Latitude.
5. I first felt that gOdAvari the saptagOdAvari of the citrakUT itself. I, later felt that gOdAvari may be the river Phalgu in gaya District, bIhAr. There is a small lake called gOdAvari in gaya itself, near phalgu river. There is also a village by name gOdAvari in gaya District.
One strong reason for me to shift the godAvari river Eastward was because Sage gautama and his wife ahalya's hermitages were located at places north to gaya, in North bIhar. (Remember rAma, just by touching a stone falling at his feet, converting to the cursed ahalya, during rAma-lakshmaNa's journey to mithila with sAge viSvamitra.). If gautama's hermitage was in North bIhar, the river brought by him through penance, cannot be in mahArAshTra and Andhra pradEsh. The naming of the South Indian river as 'godAvari' might have been a subsequent work of temple preachers and pandas.
We have already identified mandhara hill of rAvaNa's kingdom, as the mandhara hill in the City of bhagalpur, on the South banks of ganga. We have also seen that baidyanAtha mahAdEv, deOghar, jhArkhand was rAvaNa's place for worshipping Shiva. dEOghar has the trikUTa mountain which was described as a part of Lanka, in yuddha kAnDa (Volume of war). The trikUTachal has three heads. One of the three heads may be the suvEla mountain, described in the Volume of War.
I have also shown that Sabari (whom rAma and lakshmaNa met, while searching for SIta) belong to sabara tribe of jhArkhand, chattIsgadh and Orissa. At post No. 136, I felt that sabari's place was the sabari village, in NasrIganj District of bIhar (geographically it will be between citrakUT - eastward --->sabari nasriganj bIhAr --->gaya bihar.
I, now find, another possibility.
We have a village named lanka in chandankiyari tahsil, bOkaro District of jhArkhand. The chandankiyari tahsil too has a village by name 'sabara'. We have another village and lake by name 'lanka-talao' near dUmri in rAnci District.
Of course, we have a long way to go, if we have to establish that this lanka village of chandankiyari, bokaro-ranci-deoghar-bhagalpur as the kingdom of rAvaNa. But all these places have potential.
I have to come to know that the renowned historian late H.T. Sankalia, identified in 1971 itself, that choTAnagapur region of bIhar (at present jhArkhand) could be the lanka of rAvaNa. My discussion in the above paragraphs, bolsters what Late Sankalia proposed in 1971 itself.
Added on 5-Sept-2014
Is there scope for Sultanganj Ganga-river-bank 25 km. North of Bhagalpur, to be Ravana's Lanka?
Ample scope exists. Right now, I am unable to provide evidence. Bhagalpur and Sultanganj residents have to take more interest in the history of their places and come up with more information.
ADDITIONAL RELATED LINKS
By this blogger: Click to go to post No. 822 of this blogger, at problemsoftelugus.blogspot.com.
