Ain-i-Akbari

Abul Fazl's Persian account of Akbar's empire, whose Kashmir section (Jarrett's translation, vol. II, p. 360) describes the Amarnath cave and its ice image that forms with the new moon, grows for fifteen days to about two yards and dwindles with the waning moon, held by the people to be Mahadeva. Jarrett's footnote calls the ice a stalactite, a guess; it grows from the floor. A Mughal painting of about 1600 (Aga Khan Museum) shows men admiring the ice lingam under a sun instead of the moon.