The fifty four pillars are made of granite quarried in Aruppola, away. Some, in the chancel, are built in sections, but most have been hewn out of single blocks ( long and square), each of which weighing about before carving. The blocks were then hauled up to the college on a trolley by a pair of elephants. The first pillars to be erected, those by the pulpit and the south entrance, were fully carved at the quarry before being transported. The remainder were carved at the site of the chapel.