Aeons of Arunachala

"You don't have to be the biggest or the best, if you're the first."
—The Sunday Gentleman

If Sri Ramana was attached to anything, it was to just the Hill.

In Face to Face with Sri Ramana Maharshi, we find Him saying: (page 355, top)

"Someone from abroad wants a stone from the holy part of the hill. He does not know that the whole hill is holy. The hill is Lord Siva Himself. As we identify ourselves with the body, so Siva has chosen to identify Himself with the hill."

Read a snippet as well that might give some factual basis to the mythological story of Arunachala appearing as a column of fire: (page 354, top)

The word 'Annamalai' in Tamil means 'an inaccessible mountain'. 'Annal' is a special name for Lord Siva, who appeared in this place in the form of a column of fire, neither the top nor root of which could be approached, hence inaccessible. The mountain thus came to be known as Annal Malai (malai in Tamil means mountain). Slowly the word got corrupted to Annamalai. Paul Brunton, in his A Message from Arunachala, writes that his geologist friend from America held the view that Arunachala was thrown up by the earth under the stress of some violent volcanic eruptions in the dim ages before even the coal-bearing strata were formed.

That was a very long time ago! From Energy - How And When Was Coal Formed?:

The Carboniferous Period, during which coal was produced, occurred between 286 and 360 million years ago.

Arunachala in Google Earth