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A series of photos showing carvings of gods are circulating in Facebook and Twitter posts that claim to be from the Chamarajeshwara temple in Karnataka, India. The claim is false; the sculptures are displayed in a Buddhist temple in Hyogo, Japan.
Pictures have been posted here on Twitter on October 22.
The Hindi tweet reads: “They can only mock our heritage but they can’t match its architecture. Don’t just stare at the statues, watch their clothes float in the air, observe them scrupulously .Chamarajeshwara Temple, Mysore.”
Chamarajeshwara Swamy Temple is a Hindu temple in Chamarajanagar in the state of Karnataka, in southern India.
The same set of images have been circulating in similar posts for at least 2020. The images have been shared here and here on Facebook; and here and here on Twitter.
However, the claim is false.
A reverse search of one of the pictures found the same photo posted on the video and image hosting site Flickr. An account called Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple shared all of the images of the sculptures in misleading posts, along with several other photos of a Buddhist temple.
Screenshot of image posted to Flickr taken November 10, 2021The other two images have been posted here and here.
Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple in Hyogo, Japan is one of the Buddhist sects that represent the Buddhist cultures of China, Korea and Japan, according to its official website.
the Grand Royal Hall of Buddhism is its main temple.
A video on the temple’s YouTube channel shows structures similar to the viral images.
A spokesman for the temple told AFP that the images were taken in the Great Royal Hall of Buddhism at the Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple.
