"While the camp-baskets were unlocking, I could not resist taking a peep at the fire-fount and the shrine of Achil-eswar, one of the most renowned in the fabulous annals of the Hindus. The Man-agni-coonda is about nine hundred feet long by two hundred and forty in breadth, excavated in the solid rock, and lined with solid masonry of immensely large bricks. An insulated mass of rock has been left in the center of the coond, on which are the ruins of a shrine to Mata, the universal mother. On the crest of the northern face of the coond is a group of small temples dedicated to the Pandu brothers, but, like the former, a mass of ruins."
James Tod

January 1, 1970