Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Tuesday called upon young engineers to conduct researches on heritage marvels like Ram Setu to find out new truths about the country's glorious monuments.
Nishank, who was addressing the 65th Convocation of IIT Kharagpur here, said India had been the world leader from knowledge to science for ages and claimed that "Sanskrit is the first language of the world."
"When we look behind, we remember how our engineers had built the Ram Setu and our upcoming engineers must delve into its study," he said.
Indian mythology states that the Ram Setu, between what is now India and Sri Lanka, was built by an army of monkeys for Lord Rama and his warriors to cross over to Lanka.
Later at a press meet, the minister was questioned about the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)'s view that there was no historical or scientific evidence to establish that Rama Setu is a man-made bridge.
The Union Human Resource Development minister said, "What I meant there should be new research and quest about Ram Setu (by the new generation of engineers)."
"I said there should be new searches by our young generation of engineers to arrive at new findings about different heritage marvels like Ram Setu, to find out new truths about our glorious monuments, to make the world again aware about what we had built ages back," the minister added.
During the tenure of the Congress-led UPA government, the ASI had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming that there was no historical or scientific evidence to establish the existence of Lord Ram and Rama Setu as a man- made bridge. The affidavit was, however, withdrawn in September 2007.
The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) in April last year had declared that it will not conduct or fund any study to determine whether the Ram Setu was a man-made or a natural structure.
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