It is a tectonic plate that spans the Indian Peninsula, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and a small part of the Indian Ocean. Together with the Australian plate, it forms the Indo-Australian plate.
In the Paleogene (the oldest period of the Cenozoic era), a deep tectonic trench was formed, which separated Ceylon from India.
According to Hindu mythology, there was a land bridge between India and Sri Lanka. Today, there is only a chain of limestone islets called Adam’s Bridge, Rama Setu, or Rama’s Bridge, and geological evidence suggests that it is a former land link between the island and the mainland.
It is 48 kilometers long and separates the Gulf of Mannar from the Palk Strait. According to tradition, it is the remnant of a great causeway laid by Rama (one of the incarnations of the god Vishnu, seen in Hinduism as the Supreme God) or animals from his army so that his troops could cross from India to Sri Lanka, where his wife Sita was abducted by the demon Ravana.
According to Muslim legend, the causeway was crossed by Adam, who walked to Adam’s Peak (the island’s fifth-highest peak) on Ceylon, where he stood on one leg for 1,000 years.
