freinds, the inner sanctum in chidambaram is 7 feets deeper than the road level. the inner most pragaram of the adhimoolar shrine also lies below the outer pragarams.
the pragarams are arranged in such a fashion that each outer one is a feet above. such arrangement could be a pointer to the layers of development from the previous one!
the inner most is then could be a pointer to the earliest structure built by hiranyavarman or kochengannan?
interestingly the inner most ring has most of the images of patanjali,vyagrapathar,thirumoolar and a king(?kochengannan or hiranyavarman)
there is also a small image of rajaraja along with karuvoorar in the inner pragaram!(needless to mention about the thirumurai kattiya vinayakar shrine where RRC had retreived the manuscripts).