Of late there have been more media activities - visual in nature - re Rajarajecharam, Thanjai.
We have seen and appreciated the National Geographic Channel Documentary on this subject - showing elephants trying shifting the stone-blocks using long wooden rollers etc.,
Some of us have seen power point presentation by our Sriraman re shifting materials towards the Peak of Vimanam through spiral mud path and then removing the same - graphically !!
Of course the latest Sun TV programme - retelecast more than once - has also kindled enormous interest with clippings of Dr. Nagaswamy - Kudavayil Dr. Balu Sir - Dr. Sathyamurthy and another Civil Engineering specialist..
In the past one year - there have been PROMINENT PUBLICATIONs ::
1. re INSCRIPTIONS OF RAJARAJECHARAM - Sivapathasekaran inscriptions by Pulavar Mahadevan
2. re SCULPTURES OF RAJARAJECHARAM - Dr. Kudavayil's book
Another two more books in the offing .. expected to be released within next 2 - 3 months.
Thanks to Dr. Sathyamurthy (Retd Suptt Archaeology) and Founder / REACH with his (then) ASI Team members - even common persons are able to see the PRICELESS BIG TEMPLE CHOLA PAINTINGs FOUND IN THE DARK VESTIBLEs of FIRST FLOOR through the Photo replicas !!
Our Group has honoured this TEAM last year !!
REACH is planning to celebrate the 1000th Year Celebrations in July in Chennai. Arrangements are on.
During and after Chemmozhi Conference - more announcements are likely to be expected.
We will plan a concise Programme after this.
Documentary producers can take inputs from the details furnished above and fine-tune suitably since most of these are NOT available for National Georgraphy Chennal when they produced !!
Thanks a lot everyone.... yes certain portions of the trailer was bit shaky.... it was due to a logistical mistake on our part... thanjavur is my native town so one day during a casual visit i went and asked the ASI official who sits near the entrance of the temple about getting permission to use tripods and handycams.... He said a letter from the local ASI office would be enough and also told me that the ASI office is situated just next to the big temple...
So i thought i can go on a saturday morning, get permission from tanjore ASI office and start shooting... but on the day of shoot however there were some more ASI officials... who said not many officers would be available on Saturday.. ( we went for the shoot on a weekend since we are all working in Chennai) and also asked us not to take tripods inside and said that we needed to get "special" permission from Chennai ASI office... it was our mistake to not to have checked the ASI site before itself....
Now i am planning to get prior permission and re shoot with proper tripod. Has anyone tried getting such permission letters from ASI before..??
Thanks sps for such a comprehensive list.... it will be really helpful in making the documentary... agreed that we do have some international documentaries made by BBC and NGC about Raja Raja Cholan and Thanjavur temple... but i personally feel that it was not exhaustive enough and didn't cover the temple and cholan history completely...
We are planning to do a complete coverage of the temple and planning to release the documentary on Rajaraja cholan's birthday which is Sathaya thiruvizha.... hoping to make a good effort in the main documentary.
Please feel free to contact me if you want to help us with the making of documentary in any manner.
Once again many thanks for all your support and encouragement.....
Hi Shiva, Never tried to get such permission and I myself is a bit skeptical on getting such. I am also trying to get the permission to shoot Gudimallam lingam, so need to write to ASI Superintendent of Hyderabad. You can get the address of Madras/Chennai circle from ASI website and write a letter to get a permission.I hope this should serve the purpose. Better you can go and try to meet in person as you stay in Chennai. Please also let me know the schedule of your project, so that I can plan and help you. Been once to Thanjavur already once, however would surely wanna go again. -Regards, Saurabh
Thanks a lot for the information. It was really helpful. Unfortunately i have no contact with any scholars as of now... i am trying to meet Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniam sir though...
As of now i am heavily relying on information available on sites like
Right now we are working on the narrative script... once we get permission from ASI, we need to reshoot few scenes, do post processing and the film will be ready.
Hope we can release the documentary before Sathaya Thiruvizha!