Ravana

Where is the actual Ravana's Lanka? Some people say it is not Sri Lanka as it was near Vindhyanchal (as per Ramayana), some say its actually present day Mauritius and British islands? Some scholars have raised doubt about whether today’s Sri Lanka is the Lanka of the Ramayana era. So it is a matter of speculation. And some glaciology and climate studies. Archaeological evidence would be nice, but considering that these events happened some 15000 years ago, it is highly improbable. The doubt comes from the descriptions in the text itself. And specifically, the direction that Hanuman is said to have travelled when he first went in search of Sita. Given a start point of Mahendergiri in the Western Ghats in modern Tamil Nadu, he is said to have travelled due south for “90 yojana” (please verify). Now assuming (and this is the crux) that one yojana is 10km, that’s 900 km due south of Mahendergiri mountain. And it’s supposed to be a group of islands! If you study aerial photos on Google Earth, there is nothing there today. And Maldives is a further 400km West. So let’s wait for the evidence to be corroborated. Note: Some people have asked to check the distance to Lanka from Mahendragiri in Orissa. So here it is. I have changed the units from 10km to 10 miles per yojana, which will make the distance in km to be around 1500km (you can verify based on your understanding of how to interpret yojana in this context). What’s interesting is that you again see that offset of some 300–400km West to connect to the Southern part of Lanka (Nuwara Eliya is a possible location of another place with the Ashoka Vatika, but the “crater lake” there no longer exists). We also know that since the Ramayana was some 14,000 years ago, the North Celestial Pole was not Polaris, it was Vega (Abhijit). Does that change in the North Celestial Pole cause this 400km offset compared to the longitude lines today (distance-offset ratio)? Is the angular offset between Vega and Polaris correspond to this? Is that data even relevant?