The Great Epic of the Bhārata dynasty 13.15.5

13.15.5

māsamekaṃ phalāhāro dvitīyaṃ salilāśanaḥ |
tṛtīyaṃ ca caturthaṃ ca pañcamaṃ cānilāśanaḥ || 5 ||

"The blessed Vishnu continued, 'I then said unto him, O regenerate one, through thy grace, O great ascetic. I shall behold the lord of the deities, that grinder of multitudes of Diti's sons. Eight days, O Bharata, passed there like an hour, all of us being thus occupied with talk on Mahadeva. On the eighth day, I underwent the Diksha (initiation) according to due rites, at the hands of that Brahmana and received the staff from his hands. I underwent the prescribed shave. I took up a quantity of Kusa blades in my hand. I wore rags for my vestments. I rubbed my person with ghee. I encircled a cord of Munja grass round my loins. For one month I lived on fruits. The second month I subsisted upon water. The third, the fourth and the fifth months I passed, living upon air alone. I stood all the while, supporting myself upon one foot and with my arms also raised upwards, and foregoing sleep all the while. I then beheld, O Bharata, in the firmament an effulgence that seemed to be as dazzling as that of a thousand Suns combined together. Towards the centre of that effulgence, O son of Pandu, I saw a cloud looking like a mass of blue hills, adorned with rows of cranes, embellished with many a grand rainbow, with flashes of lightning and the thunder-fire looking like eyes set on it. Within that cloud was the puissant Mahadeva. himself of dazzling splendour, accompanied by his spouse Uma.