The natural-damage theory is supported by the nearness of the temple to the shore and the monsoons in the region that would tend to cause damage. According to NCERT's history text book, the shikhara of the temple reached as high as 70m, which proved heavy for the site and it fell in the nineteenth century. However, the existence of nearby stone temples in the Odisha region that were built earlier and have stood without damage casts doubt to this theory. According to P.Parya, the number of rings of moss and lichen growth found on the stone ruins suggests the damage occurred sometime around the 1570s, but this approach does not indicate why or by whom.