DigitEye India Fact Checkers
As the Ayodhya temple is nearing its completion, an old video claiming that an ancient copper scroll of the Buddhist relic was found from the temple site. The claim received on WhatsApp reads: “In the excavation of Ayodhya, the copper plate of the Buddhist period was found, the biggest evidence of being the heritage of Buddhism.”
The video was earlier shared on Twitter as below:
In the excavation of Ayodhya, the copper plate of the Buddhist period was found, the biggest evidence of being the heritage of Buddhism.!
Still no doubt left.
Jai Samrat Ashoka pic.twitter.com/GJSJBHz7vu— Indian Dalit Ekta (@IndianDalitEkta) May 24, 2022
Also known as “Tamrapatra”, these copper plates were used for documentation in the ancient period and citing it, the claim says that there was a link to Buddhism in Ayodhya, which is a revered place for Hindus and known as the birth place of Lord Ram. The claim gains ground in the context of Buddhist monks protesting construction of the temple of Lord Ram.
In July 2020, Buddhist monks had staged a protest in Ayodhya claiming that the Ram Janmabhoomi area was a Buddhist site and be handed over to UNESCO for excavation. The monks demanded the construction work of Ram temple be stopped immediately and UNESCO should take over excavation work at the site.
Though the Ayodhya temple issue was settled by the Supreme Court and the local Waqf Board has agreed to relocate the mosque elsewhere in the town, the claim of Buddhist legacy in Ayodhya adds another dimension to the sensitive issue in the ancient city.
Fact Check
When Digiteye India received such claim for fact check, based on some frames of the viral video, the team first conducted a Google reverse image search and the results showed that the claim has been surfacing intermittently since June 2020, to be seen here and here.
??????
While digging for the construction of Sri Ram Lalla Mandir at Sri Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya, a Time Capsule was discovered showing the details of original temple.. ?? pic.twitter.com/bQMNAALGuo— Dr. Ramesh C Sharma (@ramesh_gogi) June 8, 2020
However, when we checked for related videos on Youtube, we came across similar video related to a Jewish time capsule uploaded on YouTube by user Sriram Prabhu Kumar on March 19, 2022 with the title, ‘500 B.C | Original book of Esther found in Iran with a pure Golden Literature.’
The original Book of Esther #Purim was recently found in Iran by Yehudim living there. The scroll is from 1500 years ago.
Everything is written in pure gold.👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/839V0uA7Pd— Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) March 16, 2022
Using Google search further, we could find the script written on the scroll was ‘Hebrew’, the language of Jews. Moreover, the typical symbol of Star of David that belongs to the Jewish iconography, used for protection by the Jewish communities.
“This is a forgery,” said Lawrence Schiffman, a professor and director of New York University’s Global Network for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies told AFP. “We have an arbitrary arrangement of Hebrew letters. We don’t have the Book of Esther.”
Hence, the copper plate shown in the video has nothing to do with Buddhist literature or scripts. Nor does it prove that it was about the original book of Esther found in Iran.
Claim: A copper plate belonging to Buddhist period found in Ayodhya excavations.
Conclusion: The viral video of a copper plate or scroll doesn’t belong to the Buddhist period and was in Hebrew, belonging to the Jewish scriptures.
Rating: Misrepresentation — 
