A video (here, here, and here) of a snake revolving around a statue of a deity is doing the rounds on social media. It is being claimed that this shows a ‘Marvellous Ceiling of 6th Century Coiled Naga Raja in Badami Caves, Karnataka.’ We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: This video shows a moving sculpture located in Badami Caves in which a snake-shaped object revolves around a statue of a deity.
Fact: Such a statue/sculpture does not exist in the Badami caves. This is an edited video. The viral video was created by digitally manipulating a photograph of a carving located in the Badami caves. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the authenticity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search using a few keyframes of the viral video. This search yielded no credible information proving that such a moving sculpture is located in the Badami caves.
If it did exist in India, the mainstream media and engineering and architecture-related web portals must have reported on it and published articles about it. However, we found no such articles about this alleged moving serpent sculpture.
Additionally, we found a couple of detailed write-ups about Badami Caves on the official websites of Bagalkote district, Karnataka, where these caves are located, and on the Karnataka tourism website. They have not mentioned anything about this moving sculpture in these detailed articles about Badami Caves. This makes it clear that such a carving with a moving serpent is not present on the ceiling of the Badami caves.
During the process of reverse image search, we found several photos (here, here, and here) of a ceiling carving located in the Badami Caves, which looks identical to the one seen in the viral video. Most of these photos were found on stock photo websites like Alamy, Getty Images, Flickr, etc.
We found the same carving located inside the Badami Caves on Google Maps too. It is indeed a sculpture carved out on the ceiling inside Badami Caves (Cave Number One) that looks exactly similar to the one in the viral clip.
To check if the serpent seen in these photos moves, we looked through a few vlogs of this location on YouTube and found that the serpent in this carving clearly does not rotate like the one in the viral video. You can see these vlogs here and here. This makes it clear that the viral video was created using a photograph of this carving by making it move with the help of digital image manipulation tools.
Further, we found that the viral video was originally posted by someone named ‘Gopinath Reddy Medepally’ on Instagram. On his page, Gopinath uploads photos and videos of various temples and sculptures/ carvings located in them with a watermark that reads ‘MGR’s Clicktography.’ The same watermark is also present on the viral video. To check if he made the viral video and for further details about it, we wrote to Gopinath; this article will be updated with his statement once he responds.
To sum up, a digitally manipulated video is being shared as a real video of a moving sculpture located in Badami Caves, Karnataka.
