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96
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ MAY, 1920
"Although the Mahabharata contains no mention of Dantapura, it mentions several times, in connexion with the country of the Kalingas, a name containing the element danta. In the fifth canto (adhy. 23, verse 708) Yudishṭhira, recalling the exploits of his brethren, cries:-"The son of Madri, Sahadeva, has vanquished the Kalingas assembled at Dantakûra, firing his arrows to right and left."
Madriputraḥ Sahadevaḥ Kalingan samagatan ajayad Dantakûre |
vânmendsyan daksin cnaiva yo vai mahábalam kaccidenam smaranti ||
"A little further on, in the same canto, when Samjaya repeats the words of Arjuna in, praise of Krishna (adhy. 47, v. 1883), "It is he," he says, "who broke the Pândya at Kavâța and crushed the Kalingas at Dantakûra."
ayam kavâte nijaghana Pandyar
tatha Kalingan Dantakûre mamarda ||
"P. C. Roy's rendering of this passage is as follows:-"It was he who slew king Pandya by striking his breast against his, and mowed down the Kalingas in battle." He adds the following note: "Some texts read Kapâte nijaghana," meaning "slew in the city of of Kapâta." He for his part follows the text of the Calcutta edition: kapâṭena jaghana. Obviously the two texts give very different meanings. The translator has followed the commentary of Nilakantha, who accepts kapátena jaghâna, and translates kapâta as "thorax, chest as large as the leaf of a folding door," and who, in the second place, arbitrarily interprets dantakûra as 'a battle in which one gnashes the teeth.'
"The Southern edition (adky. 48, v. 76) reads Kavâte nijaghana and dantavaktra mamarda. A gloss interprets Kavate by nagarabheda, a particular town,' but says no more. It is curious, in any case, to find this king Dantavaktra, so persistently associated with Kalinga, reappearing here in defiance of the rules of syntax, which forbid the juxta-position of two accusatives (tatha Kalingan dantavaktram mamarda).
"The word dantakûra appears again in the Mahabharata, VII, 70, 7, at least in the Southern edition. The poet recalls the exploits of Parasurâma in his great struggle against the Ksatriyas: "There, fourteen thousand enemies of the Brahmans, and yet others, he checked and slew at Dantakûra."
brahmadvisâm châtha tasmin sahasrâm chaturdasa
punar anyân nijagraha Dantakûre jaghana ha.
The commentator mentions an alternative reading, dantakrûram; "in this case," he remarks "this word refers to the ruler of the country." In other words, if it is not a placename formed with kúra, it is a personal name formed with krûra (cruel), and one must take it to be an accusative: he slew Dantakrûra P. C. Roy's translation accepts the reading Dantakûre and gives the following rendering :-" In that slaughter were included fourteen thousand Brahman-hating Kshattriyas of the Dantakûra country." The Calcutta edition prefers to read Dantakrûra jaghana ha, which is the reading followed by Nilakantha, whose gloss (taddeśadhipati) has been reproduced by the annotator of the Southern edition. The authors of the Petersburg Dictionary have, under the heading dantakrûram, treated this word as an adverb and have translated it in a savage manner with the teeth,' giving a reference to this particular passage. Subsequently, however, in the abridged edition, Böhtlingk has substituted for the adverb dantakrûram the noun dantakrûra, which he renders as follows:-"Name of a place (according to Nilakantha); one ought unquestionably to read dantakûre for dantakrûram."
"The choice between Dantakûra and Dantakrûra, which the Mahabharata translations leave in uncertainty, and the very meaning of the word, which has also remained uncertain, are definitely established by the testimony of Pliny. In Book VI, xx, he states that he will estimate the length of the coast as far as the Indus, as it appears to him, by distances, although there is no agreement between the various itineraries, and he describes the first
