From the entrance board, they can be reached by roughly hewn steps in rocks uphill, midst cashew, coconut and rubber-plantation trees.

Jainism was active in this region, as evidence by inscriptions and literature in the Madurai region by about 1st-century BCE, and more broadly by the Pallava era, including those from the era of King Mahendravarman I (early 7th-century) famous for sponsoring Jain monuments as well as Hindu sites such as the Mahabalipuram monuments.

There is much evidence and an established chronology about the Hindu monarch Vikramaditya of Ay dynasty, states Gopinath Rao, and this helps date this temple to the 9th-century.

[3][5] The Bhagavati temple was an active place for worship for the locals Hindus, when the entire site's significance and antiquity was discovered by archaeologists.

[5] The site has a natural "heart shaped" pond below the temple and provides a picturesque view of the farmlands and valley villages.

This mentions the name of an ascetic or a donor who sponsored the carving with their place of residence in Tamil language and Vatteluthu script.

The Hindu temple includes a mandapam, a varandah corridor and a balipeetham with a kitchen (madappalli) which is carved into a natural overhanging rock.

These discoveries have led scholars such as Gopinath Rao to better date the temple, its history and revise their conjectures on the relationship between Jain and Hindu community in Tamil Nadu.

[5][8][13] According to Gopinatha Rao, the Hindus of 13th-century or earlier were already treating the southern side of this site as sacred to them, and making gifts and offerings to the temple.

Their prayers have included Padmavati as a goddess in their pantheon, making the site an active place for pilgrimage thereafter for some seven centuries.

It stated that "Narayanan Kalikan alias Dharmachetti-nayinar of the city of Tirukkudakkarai made certain arrangements" to ensure certain services in the "Bhagavati temple" on the "17th of the month of Medam in the year Ko 584".

[8] Hindus did not "convert" the Jain temple by erasing or destroying it, or refashioning the entire site into a Hindu architecture.

Rather it is more likely, states Gopinatha Rao, that the Hindus of the early 2nd-millennium centuries revered the site because they always considered Padmavati as part of their pantheon, left the rest of the cave temple alone, and preserved the bas-relief and Tirthankaras of the Jains.

[8] The longer inscriptions about gifts and donations at this site were directed to Padmavati with Hindu religious icons, even during the centuries when Jains were also visiting and adding to the bas-relief.

Reliefs of Mahavira, Parsvanatha and Padmavati Devi are seen on the pillars of the Nagaraja temple mandapa along with Krishna, Vishnu, and others.