01The tooth at the confluence
Dant is a tooth, and the town and the Devi are both named for it: Bastar tradition holds that when Sati’s body was divided, a tooth fell here on the bank where the Shankini and Dankini meet. The Peetha Nirnaya Tantra’s list of 51 does not name Dantewada; the tradition of Chhattisgarh and many popular lists of 52 count it, so traditions differ. The temple stands in a walled court, with a Garuda pillar before the door and a sanctum and mandapa of stone. The murti of Danteshwari Mai is carved in black stone. Pilgrims bathe at the confluence and take its water home.
02Bastar Dussehra
The Kakatiya rulers who came to Bastar from Warangal in the 14th century made Danteshwari their kuldevi, and the kings of Bastar ruled in her name. Their Dussehra runs about 75 days, from Hariyali Amavasya in Shravan to the days after Vijayadashami, and it has nothing to do with Ravana. It is the Devi’s festival. Her chhatra is brought from Dantewada to Jagdalpur, where a white-stone Danteshwari sits in the palace temple, and the villages of Bastar send their own gods and their headmen. A great wooden chariot, built new each year by the tribes, is drawn through the town. At the end, the Devi is seen off back to Dantewada.
Dantewada is about 80 km from Jagdalpur by road and has a station on the Kirandul line. Navratri brings thousands of jyoti kalash lit in the temple.
