A photo showing a Hindu structure purportedly carved out of a single rock is being widely shared on social media platforms, with a claim that it is a 5,000-year-old rock structure from Rajasthan, India (here, here, & here). In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of a 5,000-year-old structure carved from a single rock in Rajasthan, India.
Fact: This viral photo shows an 8th-century monolithic temple named Vettuvan Koil in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu and it is not 5,000 years old as claimed in the viral post. According to historians, reports, and the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department, the Vettuvan Koil is a single rock-cut temple located in Kalugumalai, Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu. It was built around the 8th century AD during the reign of the Pandya kings. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To verify the authenticity of the viral image and learn more about the claim, we conducted a Google reverse image search. This search led us to multiple reports featuring pictures of a similar rock carving from different angles. According to these reports, the viral photo shows the Vettuvan Koil, a single rock-cut temple located in Kalugumalai, Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu.
According to an article in ‘Heritage Daily’, the temple was constructed during the 8th century AD, under the reign of the Pandya dynasty (Pandyas of Madurai), and is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, one of the principal deities of Hinduism. ‘Vettuvan Koil’ was carved from a single granite rock, with the upper section depicting various carvings of ‘Parsavadevatas’ (the attendant deities of Shiva) such as Uma (goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, and children), Nandi (the gate-guardian deity of Kailasa, the abode of Lord Shiva), and various animals such as monkeys and lions. A ‘Frontline‘ article titled ‘Southern Connection’ mentioned that the Vettuvan Koil was excavated around AD 800, during the reign of the Pandya king Nedunjadayan. This article was authored by T.S. Subramanian, a veteran archaeology journalist and former Associate Editor of Frontline.
R.H. Kulkarni, a professor from the Department of Art History at the College of Fine Arts, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, provided a detailed narration about this temple in an article in the ‘New Indian Express’ (archived link). According to this article, Vettuvan Koil was built around 760-800 AD. Among South Indian architectural edifices, Vettuvan Koil, a monolithic (formed from a single large block of stone) temple in Kalugumalai, Tamil Nadu, deserves special mention. A sculptor’s paradise, it is a monolithic temple like the Pancha Rathas in Mamallapuram and the Kailasanatha temple in Ellora. Built around 800 CE, Vettuvan Koil features a Dravida vimana emerging from the rectangular rock. Additional articles on the history of this temple in Kalugumalai can be found here .
We then looked up the temple on the website of the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department. The website features a few images of the Vettuvan Koil and mentions that the monument was established during the 8th century AD by the Pandya Maranchadayan king. According to the website, this monument is also nicknamed the ‘Ellora of the South.’ The Vettuvan Koil is a monolithic structure formed by carving a single rock. From all this information, it is evident that this viral photo shows an 8th-century monolithic temple named Vettuvan Koil in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu and it is not 5,000 years old as claimed in the viral post.
To sum up, this viral photo shows an 8th-century monolithic temple named Vettuvan Koil in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu.
