Patna swarms to see floating ‘Setu’ rock

published on October 4, 2007

Source Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Patna_swarms_to_floating_Setu_rock/articleshow/2423324.cms

 

PATNA: A stream of devotees caused a stampede on the first floor of Mahavir Mandir near Patna Junction on Tuesday while making a bid to have a close look at a piece of rock brought specially from Rameshwaram.

 

Weighing 15 kg, the rock does not sink in water. The devotees believe it is a fragment of the “rocks huge as autumn clouds”, as described in Valmiki Ramayan, used to built the Ram Setu by Nala, the son of Vishwakarma.

 

Devotees elbowed each other and scrambled to get near the large vessel where the stone was kept afloat in water. While some tried to touch it, others splashed their fingers in the water, while still others bowed with folded hands in a show of obeisance.

 

The rock will be displayed on the temple premises everyday, said temple administrator Nagendra Ojha. Standing behind the vessel, Mahavir Mandir Trust secretary Acharya Kishore Kunal said he brought this “floating” stone from Hanuman Temple at Rameshwaram.

 

“I was told that during the devastating cyclone of 1964 many such floating pieces of rocks from the Ram Setu were found scattered near Rameshwaram,” he said adding only a few of them are now available in Hanuman Temple.

 

Kunal, who is also administrator of Bihar Board of Religious Trusts, said he wished to prove nothing. However, he asserted that the fact remained that there had been such floating stones near Rameshwaram where a bridge had been constructed by Lord Rama’s army to cross the sea and reach Lanka.

 

“The availability of these floating stones gives evidence to the account of Valmiki on the construction of Ram Setu which is described in the canto XXII of the Yudha Kand of the Ramayana,” he said.