Fact Check: Edited Photo of Stones in Norway Viral As Shivling in South India

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A photo going viral on social media shows a Shivling hung between two rocks. The sculpture is claimed to be from South India. In our investigation we found the claim to be false. The photo of Shivling has been pasted with the help of editing tools between two rocks. The rocks are located in Norway.

Claim

In the viral post, a Shivling can be seen atop a stone hung between two rocks. The post reads: “#ओम्शिवा– #अद्भुत,#अकल्पनीय। ।।आरम्भ भी अंत भी,शांत भी प्रचंड भी ।। #दक्षिणीभारत में दो पहाड़ो के बीच स्थित शिवलिंग,देखो सनातनियों हमारे पूर्वजों ने कितनी मेहनत व कितनी अद्भुत महान वास्तुकला का हमे परिचय करवाया और विरासत में हमारे लिए इतने अद्भुत अजूबे हमारे लिए छोड़कर गए है। हमारा दुर्भाग्य ये रहा कि हमारे इतिहास के खिलाफ राजनीतिक षड्यंत्र रचे गए और इतिहास लेखन का कार्य #वामपंथियों को दिया गया और इन सब चीजों को उन्होंने सिर्फ दफन करने का कार्य किया है, आज इनको हमे हर व्यक्ति तक पहुचाने की आवश्यकता है, और इनको संरक्षण दिलवाना हमारा कर्तव्य है। जागो हिन्दू जागो हिन्दू जगेगा देश जगेगा देश बचेगा। (English: Shivling between two mountains in Southern India, see how difficult and great architecture our ancestors made. They left behind so many wonderful wonders for us in heritage. Our misfortune has been that political conspiracies were hatched against our history and the task of writing history was given to the #Lefties and they have only done the work of burying all these things, today these needs to reach every person, and it is our duty to protect these. Wake up, Hindu wake up, country will wake up, country will survive. “

The archive link to this post can be seen here.

Investigation

In the post, the Shivling is claimed to be in South India. With the help of keywords, we searched for the famous Shivling in South India. We found that there are many well-known Shiva temples throughout South India. Even 2 of the 12 Jyotirlingas are located in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in South India. But none of these is similar to the one shown in the viral image.

We contacted Raja Ram Pant, Chief Administration Manager, Rameswaram Temple, Tamil Nadu regarding the viral post. He said, “This picture is not of the Rameswaram temple. To my knowledge, there is no such Shivling in Tamil Nadu. ” He also gave us the number of Swami Narayan, the director of Mallikarjuna temple in Andhra Pradesh. Swami Narayan confirmed while talking to us over the phone, “This Shivling does not look real. I have not seen any such Shivling in India. “

After this, we took a screenshot of the viral picture and searched it using Google reverse image search tool. We found the exact same picture on amongraf.ro. But there was no Shivling in the picture. According to the report, this photo is of the Magic Hanging Stone in kjerag, Norway.

We further searched with the keywords “MAJESTIC HANGING STONE, KJERAG, NORWAY”. We found many photos of this hanging stone, which showed that the viral photo was edited. The real picture is of the Hanging Stone located in the Kjerag mountain range of Norway, above which the Shivalinga has been pasted with the help of editing tools, and had gone viral with the wrong claim.

The post is shared on the Facebook page ‘Hindu Empire’. We scanned the page and found that it has 1577 followers.