In short, it was the holy place of the Hindus, which the Malik dug up from its foundations with the greatest care… and heads of the Brahmans and idolaters danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet,’ and blood flowed in torrents.

Khazainu’l-Futuh. About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) and his generals conquests in Chidambaram (Tamil Nadu) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Vol. III, p. 90-91 (S.A.A. Rizvi's translation says that temples at Birdhul touched the sky with their tapes, and reached the nether world in their foundations, but they were dug up (Khalji Kalina Bharata, p. 169)