The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.159

v2.c17.s1.159

**Locale of Dantapura.** The continuation of the story does not concern us here. The salient points of the story are: 1st, that Buddhism was the popular religion of Kaliṅga from the arrival of the tooth-relic to the beginning of the 4th century A. D.; 2nd, that the tooth-relic was first brought to Dantapura; 3rd, that it was, after many years, thence carried to Pāṭaliputra or Patna; 4th, that is was subsequently brought back to Daṇṭapura; and 5th, that it was thence carried to Tāmalitti, modern Tamluk¹⁷, in order to be sent to Ceylon. The Siamese version gives the same story, making only slight variations in details, which are of no importance. The name of the lady in it is Hemacalā and not Hemamālā, but this may be due to a misprint in Col. Low's article. It is obvious and avowed that the Siamese version is a loose periphrastic translation of the original Sinhalese *Elu* text, and its differences therefore need not be noticed at length. It agrees with all other authorities in taking the place to which the tooth-relic was first brought to be Dantapura; and the question is, what was the locale of that town? If we accept Mr. Fergusson's theory that it was Puri, it becomes inexplicable why, in proceeding from Puri to Ceylon, Dantakumāra and his wife Hemamālā should march towards the north, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles to the first port of embarkation at Tāmralipti? Puri was then a port—a bad one no doubt—but for all that a recognised port frequented by ships, and to the south of Puri there were several good ports which foreign ships frequented, and from which the fugitives could easily start on their voyage. There were no difficulties in the way; the intercourse of the people of Orissa with those of the Teliṅgāna coast was, in those days, free and intimate, much more so than with those of the north; and travellers could easily go from the one place to the other. When Fa Hian, in the beginning of the fifth century proposed to start for Ceylon from Tāmralipti, people dissuaded him, saying, that the southern ports were much more convenient. ‘In going to the kingdom of the lion (Sinhala) it is not necessary’, said they, ‘to undergo a long sea voyage during which the winds are contrary, the currents impetuous, and the demons expose one to a thousand dangers. It would be better for him to start from a south-east point of Southern India, by that way he may arrive by water in three days’ (*ante*, I, p. [7]). It seems improbable, therefore, that Puri is the ancient site of Dantapura; and I am compelled to look for a different site for it; and this I find **[107]** in the little town of Dāntan, 12 miles to the north of Jaleśvara. The place was originally dedicated to something connected with a tooth, whence its name Dantapura, ‘the town’ (*pura*) ‘of the tooth,’ (*danta*), and Dāntan, ‘relating to tooth,’ is an obvious corruption of it, retaining still the old meaning. Uriyas of the present day give it a different interpretation. They say that Jagannātha, when travelling to the south, had thrown his tooth-brush here, and they have a temple too where a silver tooth-brush is shown to pilgrims as the identical one which the divinity had dropped; but the story has not the sanction of even the *Puruṣottama Māhātmya*, and may therefore be rejected as purely mythical. The town is the nearest in Orissa to Magadha, to which the tooth could be removed by order of Pāṇḍu, and is barely fifty miles from Tāmralipti¹⁸. A person, wishing to go to Ceylon from it, could, in those days when Balasore had not become a port, find the nearest port as described in the legend, and this identification therefore appears to me to be much more reliable than the one suggested by Mr. Fergusson.