"Sri Rama-Setu" means the bridge of Lord Ramacandra. I am so happy and grateful that Lord Sri Rama allowed me to compose and record this song. I remember when the song first came to me. I was driving on Shepard Mill Road across the bridge above the Dan River in Stokes County, North Carolina when I got the inspiration to compose an instrumental to commemorate the building of Rama's Bridge. The melody just kind of popped into my head. I liked the melody, so I stopped the car, found a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote down the notes as I had heard them in my head.
As soon as I got home and could find time, I started working it out on my keyboard. I contemplated how Lord Rama had rallied His monkey army to construct a huge causeway that would span the surface of the Indian Ocean from Rameshwaram in South India to the northern shore of Lanka, for the purpose of storming Ravana's stronghold. Ravana, the lord of the Rakshasa race, had kidnapped Rama's wife Sita and held her captive in Lanka. As soon as Rama gave the order to build the bridge and the monkeys saw that the stones were actually rendered buoyant, they became excited to participate in the building of this fantastic bridge, which would support them as they marched across the sea to storm Lanka.
As I worked, I prayed to be the Lord's instrument for communicating the joy of this pastime through music. The more I thought about that wonderful lila, the more excited I became to record this fun little instrumental. Finally, after several takes, I got the recording to where I was happy enough with it to share it with my friends. I especially like the little effect of the ocean sounds at the beginning and the end.
Every time I hear this song, I can picture the monkeys joyfully running to the mountains to hoist big boulders onto their mighty shoulders and then bounding back to the seashore with their huge rocks. Hanuman would then inscribe each rock with the name of Lord Sri Rama, and the boulder would then be thrown into the sea. According to the promise and prediction of Samudradeva, the lord of the ocean, every rock that bore the inscription of Rama's name would float, no matter how heavy or dense. In this way, the famous monkey army of Lord Rama, yelling at the tops of their tremendous voices "JAI SRI RAMA!!!" out of sheer ecstasy, toiled together to build a bridge that spanned the surface of the Indian Ocean from Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka.
Though the bridge was built millions of years ago, the fantastic structure can still be seen from above. The image below is one of the most famous photos of Sri Rama-Setu taken by a NASA satellite.
As soon as I got home and could find time, I started working it out on my keyboard. I contemplated how Lord Rama had rallied His monkey army to construct a huge causeway that would span the surface of the Indian Ocean from Rameshwaram in South India to the northern shore of Lanka, for the purpose of storming Ravana's stronghold. Ravana, the lord of the Rakshasa race, had kidnapped Rama's wife Sita and held her captive in Lanka. As soon as Rama gave the order to build the bridge and the monkeys saw that the stones were actually rendered buoyant, they became excited to participate in the building of this fantastic bridge, which would support them as they marched across the sea to storm Lanka.
As I worked, I prayed to be the Lord's instrument for communicating the joy of this pastime through music. The more I thought about that wonderful lila, the more excited I became to record this fun little instrumental. Finally, after several takes, I got the recording to where I was happy enough with it to share it with my friends. I especially like the little effect of the ocean sounds at the beginning and the end.
Every time I hear this song, I can picture the monkeys joyfully running to the mountains to hoist big boulders onto their mighty shoulders and then bounding back to the seashore with their huge rocks. Hanuman would then inscribe each rock with the name of Lord Sri Rama, and the boulder would then be thrown into the sea. According to the promise and prediction of Samudradeva, the lord of the ocean, every rock that bore the inscription of Rama's name would float, no matter how heavy or dense. In this way, the famous monkey army of Lord Rama, yelling at the tops of their tremendous voices "JAI SRI RAMA!!!" out of sheer ecstasy, toiled together to build a bridge that spanned the surface of the Indian Ocean from Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka.
Though the bridge was built millions of years ago, the fantastic structure can still be seen from above. The image below is one of the most famous photos of Sri Rama-Setu taken by a NASA satellite.
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| Sri Rama-Setu |
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