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| - Fact Check: Nandi statue from Maharashtra temple falsely shared as from Varanasi amid Gyanvapi Masjid row
The India Today Anti-Fake News War room (AFWA) found that the Nandi statue in the viral post was not from the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.
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India Today Fact Check
The Nandi statue in the viral post is not from the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. It is from the Kashi Vishweshar temple in Wai, Maharashtra.
Amid the Gyanvapi Masjid controversy a collage of two images, one featuring a statue of Nandi — the bull "vahana" of the Hindu deity Shiva — and the other showing the Gyanvapi Masjid, went viral with the claim that the Nandi idol was from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi and it faced the mosque.
Many on Facebook and Twitter shared the collage that also contained the text, “Nandi's long wait Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Nandi always has his face towards the Shivling but Nandi of Kashi Vishwanath faces the Gyanvapi Masjid, the original Vishwanath mandir. Muslims offer Namaz in the Masjid while Nandi gazes at the door, waiting for his master to appear. Our Bhagwan is there, waiting for us.”
The India Today Anti-Fake News War room (AFWA) found that the Nandi statue in the viral post was not from the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. It was from the Kashi Vishweshar temple in Wai, Maharashtra.
The viral posts are saved here and here.
AFWA Probe
A reverse image search of the Nandi statue led us to several websites that noted it was from the Kashi Vishweshar temple in Wai, Maharashtra.
We found the same photo on the stock photography agency Alamy. Per the website, the photo was taken on May 28, 2012. Its caption noted the Nandi Bull statue was from the Kashi Vishweshwar temple at Wai in the Satara district of Maharashtra.
Shutterstock, another stock photography website, had a photo of the same statue, this one taken on August 1, 2011. It too said it was from the Kashi Vishweshwar temple at Wai.
We have found other images of the Nandi statue from Kashi Vishweshwar temple uploaded to other stock photography websites like agefotostock and Dreamstime.
The Kashi Vishweshwar temple is an eighteenth-century temple at the union of the rivers Krishna and Venna near Satara in Maharashtra.
Thus, we concluded that the Nandi idol in the viral image was actually from Wai, Maharashtra and not from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and was in no way related to the Gyanvapi Masjid controversy.
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