The current controversy over Ram Setu presents an ideal opportunity to probe the
reality of a god whose human incarnation is central to Hindu faith. The deity
who inspired a footbridge wide enough for an army to cross the Palk Straits
poses a powerful challenge to historians who hold that India's first political
states were the 16 mahajanapadas that fought to control the Ganga valley in the
sixth-fifth centuries BCE. The kings of Kashi, Koshal, and the Vrijji
confederacy succumbed to Magadh under Bimbisar (c 543–491 BCE). Much later,
after Alexander's retreat, the Mauryan Empire (322–185 BCE) rose by deposing the
Nanda dynasty.

Can history accept that Koshal (which included Ayodhya) was an older kingdom;
that a prince banished after a palace coup could raise a formidable force and
cross an ocean to recover his abducted wife? Closely linked is the veracity of
Valmiki Ramayan as ‘itihas', not kavya; the existence of a temple in the