The viral Tamil Nadu bicycle inscription on a 7th century temple is probably the handiwork of mischievous restoration.
Hyderabad: An inscription of a man riding a bicycle in an ancient temple in Tamil Nadu has turned a few heads after going viral and being shared by international media outlets.
The inscription, showing a mustachioed man riding a bicycle, was found on a wall of the Panchavarnaswamy Temple located in Woraiyur, Tamil Nadu. The temple can be dated back to the 7th century, making the bicycle (invented in the 19th century in Germany) an obvious anachronism.
A video posted on YouTube by a travel channel shows a man visiting the temple, and questioning whether the inscription of the bicycle proves “advanced ancient technology”. With nearly 1,00,000 views, the video was picked up and shared by media outlets like the Express, Daily Star and Daily Mirror in the UK and the Chinese magazine Sia.
The “historical bombshell” has struck many people as odd, including the tabloid Daily Mirror, which states that the temple “may have predicted the arrival of the bike by hundreds of years”. Even the temple’s Wikipedia page describes the inscription as “notable and amazing”. Conspiracy-theory websites like Texas UFO Sightings have also shared the image as proof of supernatural interference.
However, the same temple made news in 2015 when a trio of scholars was able to provide an explanation on why the inscription exists. Part of a team working to chronicle the temple heritage of South India, Dr. R. Kalaikovan had told The Hindu that he found the inscription in the 1980s, adding that the bicycle was inscribed during renovation work in the 1920s. Bicycles would have been a novelty at the time in colonial-era India and a sculptor would have taken the opportunity to record it, Kalaikovan had said.
Similar inexplicable inscriptions have been chalked down to being a result of mischievous restoration work. For example, an astronaut was carved into the New Cathedral of Salamanca, Spain when it was restored in 1992. A lion eating an ice cream and a mobile phone were added to the walls of a temple in Karnataka and fake news of these carvings went viral in 2017.
This article has been done in collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer.
the print is the media funded by the communist parties and hence all articles are opposing to truths and the idiots who have written this are definitely would have got funds from the communists.
The article is fake if you see the whole video he has also destroyed the argument logically that the carvings couldn’t have been done in restoration
Your write up is shouting out loud of your agenda of undermining! You open with a conclusion and go on attempting to prove your narrative of which you have no proof. In balanced approach you would have presented possibilities and given points for and against. Why so much desperation to undermine when you have no proof for or against a point of view ?
Poor untrustworthy journalisms!!
The Post is the outcome of jealous western media… If you even put across as it being redone in 1920…A logical point is in 1920’s the bycycle in india were used by high post clerk’s oreast indian company officers, there was no chance a indian farmer could afford to buy one & ride…
The bicycle doesn’t look like a 1920 model.
Oh yes it looks like my dear
disgusting efforts by the “lobby” to demean denigrate debase degrade any thing connected with the glory of our great religion.
2. the restoratio works (restoration is much different from crafting) are done by experts by-&.under the aegis of the “archeological survey of india” & not by some.sadak chhap street urchins.
3. the sculptures show continuity & their aging can be judged easily by the experts.
it is dismaying disgusting & deplorable that such reprehensible childish reasonings are manufactured against our cultural heritage & ethos
What an idiotic article thus female has written . Stop calling this as hoaxes. Learn first and then write. Many Viewers Saying That It’s A Recent Addition. But The Point is That This Bicycle Carving is Protruding Out of The Pillar.
That Means The Sculptor Had To Create Entire Pillar To Carve This Bicycle. Why Would They Carved Entire Pillar Just To Show Bicycle ?
Praveen Mohan Clearly Explained That It’s NOT An Independent Pillar. Bicycle is Actually Carved on a Wall. Also even that kalaikovan has mentioned ‘perhaps… it may be an inclusion’ which means he’s not sure. Can he prove that it’s included in 1920. It’s his guess. JUS A LOGIC QUESTION TO THIS ARTICLE WRITER – IF YOUR GRANDFATHER BUILT A HOUSE OR TEMPLE WILL HE ALLOW THE MASON OR SCULPTURE TO DO ANY CARVING WHICH IMPRESSED THE MASON/SCULPTURE. in that case how do you believe that believe that the temple authorities allowed to carve this in 1920 ? Use the Brain before blaming or labelling…