No, lakhs of Shiva Lingas did not emerge from the Shalmala River at the Sahasralinga pilgrimage site in Karnataka - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
December 15, 2023
A video is being shared on social media claiming that lakhs of Shiva Lingas have recently surfaced from the Shivakashi River in Karnataka for the first time in India’s history. According to the post, these shiva lingas, numbering in the lakhs, have appeared following a decline in water levels along the banks of the Shivakashi River. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Lakhs of shiva lingas recently surfaced for the first time, following a decline in water levels, in the Shivakashi river in Karnataka.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows the Sahasralinga pilgrimage site, located near the Sirsi city in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. This pilgrimage site is renowned for being the location where a thousand Shiva Lingas are carved on the rocks along the banks of the Shalmala River. These shiva lingas, installed by the rulers of the Sodhe dynasty between 1678 and 1718 AD, are 1000 in number, not in lakhs as claimed in the posts. These shiva lingas usually appear during the winter and summer seasons every year. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, the same video was found recently published by multiple users on social media. These social media users described it as the visuals from Sahasralinga (Sahasralinga translates to 1000 lingams), a pilgrimage site located near the Sirsi city in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka.
On searching for further details using these keywords, we found several old YouTube videos showing similar visuals of numerous Shiva lingas carved on the rocks along the banks of a river. The YouTube channels described it as the visuals from the Sahasralinga pilgrimage site, located near the Sirsi city in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka.
Sahasralinga pilgrimage site is renowned for being the location where a thousand shiva lingas are carved on the rocks along the banks of the Shalmala River. These shiva lingas were carved during the regime of the Sodhe dynasty between 1678 and 1718 AD. Speaking about the pilgrimage site to the media, a priest named Raji Bhatt said, “They were installed by Sodhe kings and are 1,000 in number. If you take 8 km upstream and downstream into consideration, in Sahasralinga there are over 200 of them. But now their numbers are dwindling, and only 80 are left.”  Several news sites and travel YouTube channels published videos and articles showing Shiva Lingas at the Sahasralinga pilgrimage site in the past.
A few Shiva Lingas and Nandi carvings reportedly get submerged in river waters during the monsoon season. However, these shiva lingas usually appear during the winter and summer seasons every year at Sahasralingam. The Shiva lingas did not unexpectedly surface for the first time as claimed in the post. In 2018, the Times of India published a fact-check article confirming that the rumours of the emergence of one lakh shiva lingas’ in a river in Karnataka as false news.
To sum it up, there are only 1000 Shiva Lingas at the Sahasralinga pilgrim site located near the banks of the Shalmala River in Karnataka.