Amidst the anticipation surrounding the consecration of Ayodhya’s Ram Temple, a video depicting a saffron-clad march has circulated on social media, purporting to be a wedding procession from Nepal.

As the consecration ceremony for the Ram Temple draws close in Uttar Pradesh, India, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to attend on January 22, the event has garnered attention in both India and Nepal.

The viral video, featuring a religious rally with hundreds of participants donning saffron attire, was shared on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.

@abhi_dave posted the video with the following caption on X:  “Wedding gift procession from Maa Sita’s mother’s house in Nepal to Rama temple in Ayodhya.”

The post, as of January 20, has amassed over 260,000 views, 9,000 likes, and 1,700 reposts. (See archived version of the post)

The same video has also been shared on Facebook with the claim.

Does the video show a wedding procession from Sita’s house in Nepal to Ram’s temple in Ayodhya, India?

To fact-check the video, Nepal Check broke it into several keyframes. We then analyzed keyframes using Google Lens.

We found that the video was widely shared on YouTube.

Further search on Google with pertinent keywords led us to a Facebook page named “Devo ki Nagri Devbhoomi,” which shared a similar video with captions placing the event in Greater Noida’s Bageshwar Dham, posted on July 12, 2023.

Devotees in the video participate in the procession carrying an urn with chants of “Jai Ram Janaki Baithe Hai Mere Sine Mein,” which translates to “Jai Ram Janaki is sitting in my heart.”

To corroborate this finding, we cross-checked it with news reports. We found a report from ETV India.

According to the news, a Kalash Yatra took place before Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri’s recitation of Bhagwat Katha in early July in Greater Noida of India.

As per the report, a week-long recitation of Bhagwat Katha was held in the area on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi.

The video was found to be of the same ceremony.

In conclusion, the video depicts a July 2023 ceremony in Greater Noida, not a procession from Goddess Sita’s maternal home in Nepal.

(Source: https://nepalcheck.org/2024/01/21/)