An Index to the Names in the Mahabharata, with Short Explanations and a Concordance to the Bombay and Calcutta Editions and P. C. Roy's Translation c5.s6.249

c5.s6.249

Jantūpākhyāna(m) ("episode relating to Jantu"). § 11: I, 2, 447.—§ 408 (Tīrthay.): Questioned by Yudhiṣṭhira, Lomaça said: King Somaka had 100 wives, but was a long time sonless. At last, when he and his wives were old, he got a son Jantu, whom all the wives surrounded with the utmost care. One day when Jantu had been stung by an ant at his hip and cried, Somaka, afraid of losing him, inquired of his ṛtvij if there were a ceremony by which a man might get 100 sons. He was told to sacrifice Jantu and let his wives take a smell of the smoke of his fat; then 100 sons would be born, and Jantu himself would be born once more of the same mother, with a mark of gold on his back (III, 127). The sacrifice was performed notwithstanding the screams of the wives, and after ten months 100 sons were born, of whom Jantu was the eldest and most beloved and superior in merit, and had that mark of gold. When the guru and Somaka bad died, the purohita was grilled in a terrible hell for having performed that sacrifice, and Somaka prevailed upon Dharmarāja (who said "one cannot enjoy or suffer for another person's acts") that he should be likewise tormented for the same period before he entered the blessed regions. Here they (the Pāṇḍavas, etc.) spent six nights (III, 128).