Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.382

c8.382

The King became pregnant and after ten months a child came out bursting open the right side of his stomach. The King consulted his ministers as to what should be done with the child and on their advice the child was taken to the forests and left there. But the child was protected by the Devas and they enquired among themselves as to whose breastfeeding it would get when Indra appeared and said "Mām Dhātā", meaning it would drink me. That was how the child got the name 'Māndhātā'. Indra thrust the child's big toe into its mouth and the child began to suck milk through it. Māndhātā who grew thus drinking its own toe became a mighty man of renown. (7th Skandha, Devī Bhāgavata).