A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claims to show the Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala during a rare Ekantha Darshan, filmed when there were no devotees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: The video shows the Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala.
Fact: The temple in the viral video is a replica of the Tirumala Venkateswara Swamy Temple located in Alipiri, Andhra Pradesh. Earlier, when a video filmed at this replica temple went viral, the Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams clarified that cameras are not allowed inside the main sanctum of the Tirumala temple. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to reports and articles (here and here) (archived here and here), which feature the same visuals as in the viral video, claiming it to be a replica of the Tirumala temple in disarray.
According to a 2016 The Hindu article, shooting is prohibited at the Tirumala pilgrimage site, which led the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) to construct a replica seven years ago in Alipiri, Andhra Pradesh. This replica was built to broadcast temple rituals on its Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel. The electric lights (chandeliers) and pillars in the photo were identical to those seen in the viral video.
The visuals from a Facebook video (here) (archived) shot at the Alipiri replica temple also match those seen in the viral video.
We also came across a video on the National Geographic India (archived) YouTube channel, dated 13 July 2023, titled “The Replica Temple? | Inside Tirumala Tirupati.” It states that ‘The Namoona Alayam’, meaning ‘replica temple,’ is a replica of the original Tirumala temple, which was constructed in 2008.
The photos of the replica temple on Google Maps (archived) further confirm that the viral video was shot there.
To gather more information about whether video recording is allowed inside the actual Tirumala temple, we found several news report (archived) from 2020. At that time, when some individuals shared videos claiming they were filmed inside the temple, the Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Y.V. Subba Reddy, clarified that video recording is not permitted inside the main sanctum. He further stated that the video circulating on social media was filmed at the replica temple in Alipiri, where the Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel studio is located.
To sum up, the viral video is of the replica temple of the Tirumala-Tirupati temple located in Alipiri, not the actual Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala.
