Hey guys, I am at this ancient temple in India called the Panchavarnaswamy Temple temple and here you can see something quite extraordinary. In a dark corner, on one of the walls, we can see this amazing carving of a man riding a bicycle.
Historians tell us that the bicycle was invented in 1800s, just 200 years ago, but how was this carved in this ancient temple which is about 2000 years old? Before we go into this, first let us confirm if this is really a bike. Here you can see a man holding 2 ends of the handle bar, and is in a sitting position on the saddle. One of his feet is clearly on the pedal, if you look closely, you can even see the pedal underneath. There are two wheels, this is clearly a bicycle, there is absolutely no doubt about this. And we have read in history books, that bikes were invented in the last 200 years in Europe. But this carving does not show a European, it shows an Indian man with a large mustache, and a shawl on the top. His waist-cloth confirms that this is an Indian.
Is it possible that bikes were used in India thousands of years ago? Are we looking at evidence of suppressed history? To understand this, we need to learn how bikes work. To ride a bike, we need three important things, wheels, Mechanical power transmission like chain drives and the ability to balance your body. All experts agree that wheels were invented in copper age, which is about 6,500 years ago. Archeologists recently discovered a chariot with wheels in India which is at least 3800 years old. We have clear evidence that complex power transmissions systems were used in ancient times. Not only do we see gears, we have solid evidence of lathe machining which would be impossible without mechanical transmission systems. We invented wheels 6500 years ago, But why did it take human beings more than 6000 years, to invent the bicycle?
Some experts give a strange reason for this. Since early human beings evolved from apes, they were not only unable to put complex ideas together, they were also not able to balance their bodies like modern human beings. Today, we have learnt to use our bodies to do impossible acrobatic tricks, this is an evolving art but ancient people were physically clumsy people. But this theory is nonsense, because the carvings in ancient temples clearly prove that early human beings were able to do these great acrobatic tricks. They had better, flexible bodies than us, these carvings are incredible but that's another video. So, we can see evidence of wheels, transmission systems and body balancing in ancient Indian temples. Did it really take many thousand years to put all these three things together to create a bike, or were bicycles really used in ancient times?
But what do mainstream archeologists and historians say about this carving? They have very simple explanations. Some have argued that this temple was entirely built just 100 years ago. Since this is not an ancient temple, all these carvings are new, and sculptors carved what they saw. There were bikes 100 years ago, so it was easy for sculptors to carve this. Are experts right? Is it possible that this is a new temple built in the last century? No, because this temple is mentioned in the 7th century text called Tevaram. This text, written in ancient Tamil language clearly mentions this temple by its name. Therefore, this temple existed 1200 years ago. There are not only inscriptions on the temple walls to prove that this is an ancient temple, this site was even recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy who lived about 1900 years ago, so this temple must be at least 2000 years old.
