There are also interesting 'folkloric' (or mythologic) Indo-European comparative elements in that episode: the name Antaka reminds the name of the gigantic being Antaios, with whom Herakles had to fight with the hands; and the Greek hero was forced to maintain his opponent 'in the air' for killing him. Here the magic 'unkillability' of the monster is very close (3.6: zastreNAvadhyatA loke'cchedyAbhedyatvam eva ca): VirAdha has thus  to be fought with the hands (3.15) in order to be vanquished (cf. 46* 1-2: with the feet also), and, for being killed, even buried 'under-ground'  ('cast into a pit' transl. Pollock 3.26, reverse of the Antaios-way of being killed), 'like an elephant' according to the text of 46* 7-12 and 54* 2-3: these two star-passages are to be found in all the S mss (moral reasons behind their suppression from the critical text?) and the elements here underlined are  confirmed by 6,114, 12: 'Seizing him, they hurled him, face down with his arms raised, into a pit, as he roared a mighty roar like an elephant' transl. Goldman e.a. (cf. the critical note ad loc.)

Best wishes,

Christophe Vielle

I have dealt with this anecdotical aspect of the VirAdha episode  in my book Le mytho-cycle héroïque dans l'aire indo-européenne 1996, pp. 98-99.

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