There was a recent programme in discovery in hour asia : Lost temples of India
They covered periya koil to considerable detail. The arial shots of periyakoil and meenakshi temple were breath taking. In particular the granite vimana of periyakoil from the sky was stunning. They flied past the big dome as well. I was pained to see lot of wrong information going across the world about rajaraja on many fronts - but the worst was when the narrater said rajaraja built such a massive complex because he wanted to avoid the sins & destructions of his invations and have a good birth next time also. He repeatedly said this - could not capture who prepared the script.
The usual mistake of identifying sanagathi rishi's with rajaraja - karuvoor thevar was also done.
The good one was when they experimented with elephants to move a 23 tonne stone (not 32 which is the case in periyakoil). They said indian govt prohibits taking anything more than 23 tonnes on its roads ! With 2 elephants in the back and one pulling in front with wooden rollars, the stone moved !
They also reiterated sarappalam like theory and even showed a mud mound in tanjore being a portion of rr's saaram - it is on western side of temple far away from complex
Suggest our members to view the programme and share comments
i remember the elephant pushing and puling a 2 tonne rock ona remain of what they called the saram. but one thing to the credit was the angle of the saram seemed straight to the big temple.
also i remember them showing a lot of idols in a dark room hidden from the muslim invaders. they did not mention where and so we all assumed they must be in tanjore.