The venue they had chosen for the excavation was on the fringe of the wild Aralvaimozhi forest. It was a deserted place, inaccessible to ordinary human beings. The spot was called kattadimalai, meaning the mountain with an unceasing flutter of winds.
This was in the thick of a wild forest, surrounded by rocks large and small.Today it is no more so.The confluence of pilgrims and the consequent emergence of a hamlet, mostly of Roman Catholics, with a church dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows and a school run by the Sisters of St.Anne of Tiruchirapalli, have truly changed the face of the place.