The next morning, the Hindu prisoners were divided into four sections and taken to each of the four gates ... There, on the stakes they had carried, … - S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar

Brahmastpuri is Chidambaram- — There are three places that figure in this campaign frequently, ' Bir Dhul,' ' Kandur,' and * Jalkotta.' Any identification of all these, from the nature of their names as given by Amir Khusru, must turn upon the identification of the great temple Brahmastpuri, which Malik Kafur plundered. According to the description given there, it was a temple roofed over with gold, set with gems. It contained both the Linga, emblematic of Siva (Ling Mahadeo), and Vishnu (Deo Narain). These indications give sufficient lead to identify the place with Chidambaram. Chidambaram is popularly known as Kanakasabha or Ponnambalam (golden hall) from Pallava times. That was because the whole of the inner shrine of the temple was roofed over with gold, and that was renewed two or three times under the great Cholas. The later members of this dynasty from Kulottunga I onwards, if not from Kajendra I, were specially devoted to this temple, and seem to have always completed the ceremony of coronation in the capital Gangaikondasola- puram by a visit to this temple. Hence at the time it must have been one of the richest temples in this part of the country. The name Brahmast- puri is apparently the slightly modified Brahmapuri, which is the sacerdotal (agamic) name given to Chidambaram as a whole in Saiva literature. There is one temple dedicated to Siva, which goes by the specific name Brahmapuri, and the name of the deity itself is Brahmapurlsvara, and is known ordinarily as Tirukkalancheri, the northern part of Chidambaram, and this particular temple received a gift of ... gold pieces annually for certain festivals, etc., from Kulottunga III. Hence there is little doubt that the Brahmastpuri of Amir Khusru is Chidambaram.

One day whilst the Kadhi (Kazi) and I were having our food with (Ghiyazu-d-din), the Kazi to his right and I to his left, an infidel was brought before him accompanied by his wife and son aged seven years. The Sultan made a sign with his hand to the executioners to cut off the head of this man ; then he said to them in Arabic : ' and the son and the wife. ' They cut off their heads and I turned my eyes away. When I looked again, I saw their heads lying on the ground.

While the annual festival in which the god is taken over- night to the banks of the Coleroon river, a little to the south-east of Srirangam — a festival lasting a few hours — was being celebrated, tidings came that an army of the Muhammadans had come in and occupied parts of the Tondamandalam (the two Arcots and Chingleput) and a small body of troops was marching rapidly towards Samaya- varam about five miles from the north bank of the Coleroon. The principal Brahman citizens of the town, who had assembled at the celebration of the festival and who were in charge of the temple, not having got through the festival cast lots in the presence of the idol whether to stay or to go. They got an answer directing them to stay. They stayed over therefore to complete the festival, and in the meanwhile information was brought to them that the flying column of the Muhammadans was dashing past Samaya- varam. They therefore made haste to wind up proceedings, and, sending away the god and the goddess, in a small palanquin under the escort of Lokacharya (Pillai Loka- charya) and a few stout-hearted followers and carriers, the assembled multitude got themselves ready for the attack. They had not to wait long before they were actually attacked, and destroyed in large numbers. From out of this massacre Vedantacharya escaped, with the two little sons of Srutaprakasikacharya, and the single manuscript of his famous commentary on the Sri Bhashya, and betook himself through unfrequented roadways to Satyamangalam on the borders of Mysore. Lokacharya and his companions took their way to the south for safety. Fearing that they would be overtaken if they went along the road, they seemed to have kept more or less close to the road, but avoided the road-way and proceeded slowly through jungles and unfrequented tracts across the state of Pudukotta. .... They therefore made a further detour to the east and getting through a more or less dense forest region, they came to a place called Jyotishkudi (Jyotishmatl- pura), where they lived a few months. During their residence there, information reached them that the bulk of the citizens of Srirangam were massacred, the temple itself sacked and desecrated, and all those citizens that Lokacharya knew and cared for had suffered death. On hearing this distressing account of what happened to his friends and companions he got ill and died. ....When they felt the road ways safe, they carried the image across to Tirupati. The story closes that from Tirupati, the image was taken over to Ginji by Gopana and ultimately got back to Srirangam.