A Childhood Curse That Became a Wartime Gift
Nala, in most Puranic accounts, was the son of Vishwakarma, the architect of the gods, born as a vanara through Vishwakarma's own boon to a vanara mother, and he inherited a version of his father's engineering skill even in monkey form. As a child, playing with unusual roughness among the sages' ashrams, he is said to have thrown various objects, stones, fruit and tools, into ponds and streams to annoy the rishis performing austerities there, and to have done this so persistently that the sages placed a curse on him: that anything he threw into water from that point on would float rather than sink.
The curse, meant as an inconvenience or a corrective for a mischievous child, sits dormant and unremarked for the rest of his early life, treated by the text as an unusual quirk rather than a significant power, until the army gathered at the southern shore faces the specific problem of an ocean between them and Lanka, too wide and too deep for the vanara army to swim or leap across in force the way Hanuman alone had done.
Jambavan and others, remembering both Nala's curse and his engineering ability inherited from Vishwakarma, recommend him for the task, and Nala, testing a single stone at the water's edge and watching it float instead of sink, realises for the first time what the old childhood curse is actually good for.
Nila's Hand in the Construction
Nala does not build the bridge alone. His brother Nila, in most accounts a son of Agni, the fire god, works alongside him as the second lead engineer, and the two together direct the enormous vanara and rakshasa workforce, Vibhishana's forces having joined Rama's army by this point, in gathering stones, trees and boulders from across the region to be inscribed with Rama's name, per popular tradition, and carried to the coast.
The construction, called Setubandhanam or Nala Setu in the text and known today as Ram Setu or Adam's Bridge, is described as taking five days, with the vanara army working in an organised, almost military fashion, some diving to place stones at the base, others carrying material from inland, Nala and Nila overseeing placement and structural integrity so that the bridge could bear the weight of an army crossing.
The Valmiki Ramayana describes the finished structure as roughly a hundred yojanas long and ten wide, an enormous engineering feat credited explicitly to skill and divine boon working together rather than to brute strength or magic alone, distinguishing it from Hanuman's individual leap, which required no construction, only personal capability.
Rameshwaram and the Bridge Today
The southern end of the bridge is traditionally located near Rameshwaram, where Rama is said to have installed and worshipped a Shivalinga, the Ramanathaswamy temple, before crossing, seeking Shiva's blessing and, in some tellings, atonement for the killing of Ravana, a Brahmin by birth, that was to come. The temple remains one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and a major pilgrimage site tied directly to this episode.
Ram Setu itself corresponds to a real chain of limestone shoals between Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu and Mannar Island off Sri Lanka, visible in satellite imagery as a distinct underwater and partially exposed formation, which has made it a recurring subject of both devotional pilgrimage and public debate in India over the decades regarding its geological versus traditional origins, particularly around proposed shipping channel projects.
Within the devotional tradition, Nala and Nila's engineering is treated less as a footnote to Hanuman's more famous exploits and more as its structural complement: where Hanuman's leap solves the problem for one traveller, Nala and Nila's bridge solves it for an entire army, and their brief but decisive appearance in the epic is often cited in retellings as proof that the Ramayana values organised, collective skill as much as individual heroism.
Reader Questions Answered
Why didn't the stones sink when Nala threw them?+
A childhood curse placed on him by sages he had disturbed with his mischief meant that anything he personally threw into water would float rather than sink, a quirk that turned out to be exactly what was needed to build a bridge across the ocean.
How long did it take to build Ram Setu according to the Ramayana?+
Valmiki's account describes the bridge being completed in five days by the organised vanara workforce under Nala and Nila's direction, an enormous undertaking credited to divine boon and skilled engineering working together.
Is Ram Setu the same as the Rameshwaram Shivalinga story?+
They are connected but distinct: the bridge's southern end is traditionally located near Rameshwaram, where Rama is said to have separately installed and worshipped a Shivalinga before crossing to Lanka, which is why the Ramanathaswamy temple there is closely tied to the same episode.
About the author
Anjali Mehta · Editor, M.A. Religious Studies
Anjali is the managing editor for Vandnaa and oversees the festival and vrat coverage. She holds an M.A. in Religious Studies and reviews every published article for accuracy, accessibility, and tradition-fidelity.
Meet the Vandnaa editorial team →