These sculptures are from a Buddhist temple in Japan

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 11, 2021 at 13:29
2 min read
By AFP India

A set of photos showing sculptures of gods is circulating in Facebook and Twitter posts that claim they belong to the Chamarajeshwara Temple in Karnataka, India. The claim is false; the sculptures are displayed at a Buddhist temple in Hyogo, Japan.

The images were posted here on Twitter on October 22.

The Hindi-language tweet reads: "They can only make fun of our heritage but they can not match its architecture. Don't just look at the statues, watch their clothes floating in the air, watch it scrupulously. Chamarajeshwara temple, Mysore."

Chamarajeshwara Swamy Temple is a Hindu temple in Chamarajanagar in the southern India state of Karnataka.

Screenshot of the misleading tweet taken on November 10, 2021

The same set of images has been circulating in similar posts since at least 2020. The images were shared here and here on Facebook; and here and here on Twitter.

However, the claim is false.

A reverse search of one of the images found the same photo posted on video and image hosting website Flickr. An account called Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple shared all the images of the sculptures in misleading posts, along with several other photos of a Buddhist temple.

Screenshot of the image posted on Flickr taken on November 10, 2021

The other two images were posted here and here.

Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple in Hyogo, Japan is one of the Buddhist sects that represent Buddhist cultures of China, Korea, and Japan, according to its official website.

The Royal Grand Hall of Buddhism is its main temple.

A video on the temple's YouTube channel shows structures similar to the viral images.

A spokesperson for the temple told AFP that the images were taken at the Nenbutsushu Sampozan Muryojuji Temple's Royal Grand Hall of Buddhism.

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