The Patna-based Mahavir Mandir Trust will be sending the experts to the island nation "in the next three-four months", said trust secretary Kishore Kunal.

The Sri Lankan government had last month said that religious scholars had identified over 30 places associated with the Ramayana.

It was after this announcement that the trust decided to send a team of scholars, all well versed with the epic, to study the sites, Kunal told IANS. He added that the team would study Ramayana sites located in India as well.

The evidence released by Sri Lanka is largely in consonance with the events narrated in "Valmiki Ramayana", said Kunal, a former police officer who was appointed administrator of the Bihar Religious Trusts Board by the Nitish Kumar government.

But some revelations like Ravana's body being kept in a 17-feet coffin seem incorrect in view of the description of his cremation in "Valmiki Ramayana", he said.

According to the Ramayana, Ravana brought Sita to Lanka by a flying chariot called 'Pushpaka Vimanam'. Mythology has it that the vehicle landed at Werangatota, about 10 km from Mahiyangana, east of the hill station of Nuwara Eliya in central Sri Lanka.

Sita was then taken to Goorulupota, now known as Sitakotuwa, where Ravana's wife Mandodari lived. Seetakotuwa is about 10 km from Mahiyangana on the road to Kandy.

Sita was housed in a cave at Sita Eliya on the Colombo-Nuwara Eliya road, where a temple now exists in her name. She is also believed to have bathed in the stream flowing beside the temple.

North of Nuwara Eliya in Matale district is Yudhaganapitiya, where the battle between Rama and Ravana is said to have taken place. According to a Sinhalese legend, Dunuwila is the place from where Rama shot the arrow that killed Ravana.

The king of Lanka was chalking out his battle plans in a place called Lakgala when the killer arrow struck him. Lakgala is a rock that served as a watchtower from where Ravana could see north Sri Lanka clearly.

Folklore also says that Ravana's body was placed on a rock at Yahangala for his subjects to pay their last respects.

The Mahavir Mandir trust runs three hospitals here in Patna, including the state's first private cancer hospital, from the money offered by devotees and profits from the sale of special sweets prepared by it. Kunal is credited with turning the trust into a profit making body.

Kunal is also lobbying with the state government for developing a 'Ramayana circuit' in Bihar including Janakpur, Sitamarhi and Buxar to attract tourists.

(IANS)

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