These images are not from Kailash Manasarovar - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 18, 2020
A post with the image of the sculpture is being widely shared on social media with the claim that the image is from Kailash Manasarovar in China controlled Tibet. Whereas in another post (archived), image of a full moon is being shared with the claim that this image was captured near Kailash Manasarovar in China-controlled Tibet Through this article let’s verify the claim made in these posts.
Image of a sculpture and full moon from Kailash Manasarovar in China-controlled Tibet
Fact: The image of the sculpture is actually from Bandhavgarh National Park, MP whereas the image of the full moon is doing rounds on the internet for years. We could not find any credible source attributing the image to Kailash Manasarovar. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Image 1:
Reverse image search of the photo led us to the gallery section of the Bandhavgarh National Park official website in which the image of the same sculpture but without the green cover (algae) over it is featured. The blog of this park also features the same image of the sculpture in green cover but from a different angle. According to the description of the image, the sculpture is of Lord Vishu in a reclining position and the sculpture dates back to 10 century AD.
Further search led us to an article by natgeo in which the image of the sculpture without the green cover is featured. The description below the image reads “Halfway up the hill to Bandhavgarh Fort lies a gigantic statue of a reclining Vishnu, called Sheshaiya”.
The same image is also featured on threadreaderapp.com, which basically unrolls long Twitter threads and displays them on an easy to read page. The description of the image on the website also identifies the sculpture as rock-cut sculpture of SheshaShayi Vishnu in Bandhavgarh National Park. With all these, we can confirm that the image is not from Kailash Manasarovar.
Image 2:
Reverse image search of the photo led us to many social media posts and blog posts in which the same image is featured. On Reddit, the same image is featured with the title ‘A full moon in Norway’ and this image is uploaded on 29 August 2019. However, we found no credible source attributing this image to Norway.
The same image is uploaded on flickr, an American image hosting and video hosting website on 06 November 2016 with a caption ‘A Picture I liked’. Few other posts which shared the same image can be seen here and here.
We did not find any information associating this image with Kailash Manasarovar. With all this, we can say that this image is doing rounds on the internet since years and this image has nothing to do with Kailash Manasarovar.
To sum it up, the image of a sculpture is actually from Bandhavagarh National Park and the other one is a random image doing rounds on internet since a few years.