Chariot wheel from \'Mahabharat era' found in Odisha river; locals perform puja

Bhubaneswar: A circular piece of stone looking like a chariot wheel, is generating a lot of curiosity after it was recently recovered from Khadag river near Purunasahi village in Odisha’s Kandhamal district, has raised curiosity among the locals.

Believing it to be the wheel of Mahabharat’s Arjuna’s chariot, the locals have started worshipping it.

According to reports, the stone piece is round in shape and looks like a wheel with a hole in the centre probably to connect it with an axle. The place where the wheel was found has been called Arjunaghat for a long time and nobody knows why.

But after the recovery of this wheel, people have begun to really believe that Lord Krishna and Arjuna had visited the place which is why the wheel was lying there.

Moreover, the person who found that wheel claimed he had a dream some days before that a wheel used in Arjuna’s chariot is lying in the river.

“I was bathing in the Arjunaghat when I stumbled upon this stone-wheel in the river. I took it out and it looked ancient. I think this wheel belonged to the Chariot of Arjuna,” said Sumanta Nayak, a resident of Purunasahi who found the wheel.

“This wheel was found in Arjunaghat. We believe this is the same wheel that Arjuna used in his chariot during Mahabharat. We worship it as divine intervention,” said another Purunasahi local, Bilasini Digal.

After the news spread about the recovery of the ancient stone wheel, researchers from different parts of the state have started visiting the place.

“Researchers and historians have started visiting this place in large numbers to study the architecture of the wheel and decide its age. We want experts from Bhubaneswar and other places to come here and examine the wheel to address people’s curiosity about the age it belongs to and unfold other mysteries associated with it,” said Ashok Kumar Mohanty, a local journalist and researcher.