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| - Fact Check: Russian artist's artwork on Lord Krishna shared as painting from Panjshir Palace in Afghanistan
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that this painting has no connection to Panjshir or Afghanistan. This painting is the artwork of a Russian artist, who's an ISKCON devotee.
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India Today Fact Check
The painting has no connection to Afghanistan. Rashikananda Das, an artist and an ISKCON devotee from Russia, had painted this in 1999.
A painting of Lord Krishna and the five Pandavas has gone viral on social media with the claim that it still exists inside the Panjshir Palace in present-day Afghanistan.
Several Facebook users have posted this photo with caption, “This painting exists (don't know for how many days more) in the Panjsheer Palace in the erstwhile Gandhara kingdom of Mahabharata time, the present-day Afghanistan. (sic)”
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that this painting has no connection to Panjshir or Afghanistan. This painting is the artwork of a Russian artist, who’s an ISKCON devotee.
Archived versions of posts with similar claims can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA PROBE
A reverse search of the painting led us to the website of a Russian art gallery in St Petersburg.
Here we found the exact image of the painting shared on the Facebook post.
We also found some details, including the name of the (author) artist, below the image. It states that this particular painting was painted by Rashikananda.
Who is Rasiknanda?
We found the artist’s page, which had his brief profile and other artwork.
We conducted another keyword search and found his Facebook profile where his full name is Rashikananda Das, who describes himself as an ISCKON devotee from Russia.
His About page says, “I’m just artist. I love to do painting, realistic of course. I like seascapes, landscapes but paintings regarding Krishna are the topmost. Love Kirtans of IDS, BBGS...” He has also posted a few of his paintings of Lord Krishna.
To further confirm the claim, we got in touch with Rashikananda Das and he confirmed that the painting shared on the Facebook post is indeed his painting.
“I have painted it in 1999 through my own imagination. I have never been to Afghanistan. At that time, I used to work with an international publishing house named Bhatkivedanta Library Services and the painting is presently at their European headquarters in Sweden,” Das told India Today.
We also got in touch with the officials of the Russian art gallery and they also confirmed that Das had painted this picture.
Is there any palace in Panjshir?
Despite multiple keyword searches in English, Persian and Pastho languages, we did not find anything about a palace in Panjshir that housed this painting based on Hindu mythology.
Hence, we can conclude that the claim in this Facebook post is misleading.
(NOTE: The Facebook post also speaks about the connection of Mahabharat with Afghanistan. We have not tried to debunk the mythological claims. We just found that this painting is not from any palace in Panjshir province in Afghanistan.)
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You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
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