Skandapurana 6.3.1

Chapter 1 / Om, salutations to Gaṇeśa. (1.1)

Om, salutations to Śrī Puruṣottama. / Om, salutations to the auspicious Narmadā. / Om, salutations to Hari, Hara, and Hiraṇyagarbha; salutations to Vyāsa, Vālmīki, Śuka, and Parāśara; salutations to the spiritual teachers, cows, and brahmins. / Om. May the waters of the Narmadā protect you— / whose swarms of bees are intoxicated by the fragrance of the rut-wine dripping from the temples of bathing elephants; / which are turned yellowish-red by contact with the saffron melting from the pairs of breasts of Siddha women during their baths; / whose trees on the banks are covered with heaps of flowers by sages evening and morning; / and whose wave-currents are struck by the trunks of elephants and makaras. (1.2)

Endowed with holy sacred fords on both banks, washing away the flood of sins of all the worlds, / praised by gods, sages, and mortals—may the Narmadā always remove sin! (1.3)

May she destroy all sin—past, future, and present—of living beings on earth! / O purifier of all, your holy water, Narmadā, becomes nectar. (1.4)

Whose sandy bank even gods devoted to Śiva and ascetics desire, / and who is served by hosts of sages—may the Revā bring about my welfare! (1.5)

Having bowed down to Nārāyaṇa and Nara, the best among mortals, / and to the goddess Sarasvatī and Vyāsa, one should then recite the ‘Victory.’ (1.6)

In Naimiṣa, the sacred abode frequented by various seers, / Śaunaka, seated at a sacrificial session, questioned Sūta at length: (1.7)

“I consider that skill in righteousness is ever revered in you, Sūta; / for you are the narrator of holy, nectar-like stories, indeed the disciple of Vyāsa. (1.8)

Therefore I ask you, O wise poet, concerning the refuge of righteous sacred fords. / There are many sacred fords, and many of them have been heard by me. (1.9)

I have heard of the divine river belonging to Brahmā, as well as the river belonging to Viṣṇu; / but nowhere have I heard of the third, the best of rivers, belonging to Rudra. (1.10)

Tell me, O greatly wise one, of her who holds the Vedas within her, who is celebrated, saluted by hosts of gods, / and adorned with an abundance of sacred fords. (1.11)

Which land has the Revā resorted to? How was she born from the glorious Rudra? / And whatever sacred fords belong to her, please tell them to me.” (1.12)

Sūta said: / “Well asked, O head of the clan, concerning the history pertaining to the Narmadā, / wonderful, purifying, destroying faults, as heard and proclaimed, O best of good men! (1.13)

Having arranged the Vedas, Upavedas, Vedāṅgas, and the rest, the son of Satyavatī was fulfilled; / he is the proclaimer of the eighteen Purāṇas. (1.14)

Having bowed to him, I shall speak of the Purāṇas in due order, / by whose recitation righteousness and life-span increase. (1.15)

Revelation and tradition are declared to be the two eyes of brahmins; / a man lacking one of them is one-eyed, and lacking both, he is declared blind. (1.16)

Revelation, tradition, and the Purāṇas are the three eyes of learned men; / he who sees with three eyes is considered a portion of Maheśvara. (1.17)

The knowledge of the Veda was fashioned by the Lord for oneself, / as well as the Śaunakīya, the Paurāṇic, and that which has the nature of Dharmaśāstra. (1.18)

These three lores are primary in determining all sacred teachings. / ‘The Purāṇa is the fifth Veda’—such is the ordinance of Brahmā. (1.19)

He who does not know the Purāṇa knows nothing here at all. / What kind of righteousness is that, or what kind of knowledge is that— (1.20)

or what else is there in this world that is not seen in the Purāṇa? / Formerly, the Vedas were established in the Purāṇa; there is no doubt about this. (1.21)

The Veda fears one of little learning: ‘Lest this man deceive me.’ / And through the Itihāsas and Purāṇas this determination was made of old. (1.22)

The Purāṇa is the soul of the Vedas; those six limbs are separate. / And what is seen in the Vedas is indeed seen through the Smṛtis; (1.23)

and what is seen by both is sung in the Purāṇas. / The Purāṇa is remembered as the first of all sacred teachings from Brahmā. (1.24)

And afterwards the Vedas emerged from his mouths. / There was only one single Purāṇa in that other kalpa, O sage, (1.25)

which achieved the three aims of life, holy, extending to a billion verses. / Remembering it, the four-faced god spoke to the sages; (1.26)

from that occurred the emergence of all the sacred texts and the Purāṇa. / Then the sage, seeing the inability to grasp the Purāṇa in the course of time, (1.27)

the all-pervading lord, having assumed the form of Vyāsa, condenses it age after age / to the measure of eight hundred thousand verses in every Dvāpara. (1.28)

Having made it eighteenfold, it is proclaimed in this mortal world. / Even today, in the world of the gods, it extends to a billion verses, (1.29)

while here it has been concisely arranged into four hundred thousand. / The eighteen Purāṇas are now stated here; / I shall speak of them by name: listen, O best of seers! (1.30)

Creation, secondary creation, lineage, the Manu-periods, / and the history of lineages: this is the fivefold characteristic of a Purāṇa. (1.31)

Among them, the first is the Brahma Purāṇa, adorned in a collection / of ten thousand verses, containing various holy stories. (1.32)

The Padma Purāṇa is said to have fifty-five thousand verses; / the third, named Viṣṇu Purāṇa, has twenty-three thousand in number. (1.33)

The fourth, spoken by Vāyu, is remembered as the Vāyavīya; / on account of its union with devotion to Śiva, it is also known by another name as Śaiva. (1.34)

It is counted as twenty-four thousand verses, O Śaunaka; / and the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa is proclaimed as the fifth, in four sections. (1.35)

It has fourteen thousand and five hundred verses. / The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa is declared as the sixth, with nine thousand verses. (1.36)

The Āgneya is proclaimed as the seventh, with sixteen thousand verses; / and the Nāradīya is spoken of as the eighth, with twenty-five thousand. (1.37)

The ninth is named Bhāgavata, adorned with two parts; / it is declared to have eighteen thousand in text count. (1.38)

The tenth, the Brahmavaivarta, is said here to be of the same count; / the Liṅga is to be known as the eleventh, having likewise eleven thousand in number. (1.39)

That Liṅgapurāṇa is composed in two parts, O best of seers; / the Vārāha, the twelfth, they know to be twenty-four thousand [verses].

Divided into seven sections is the Skānda, O best of the fortunate; / it is indeed determined by measure to be eighty-one thousand [verses].

Then the fourteenth is remembered as the Vāmana by name; / in measure it was proclaimed of old, O patriarch, to be ten thousand [verses].

They say the Kaurma is the fifteenth, adorned with two parts; / [it contains] seventeen thousand [verses] of old in the Kali [age], O lord of Sāṅkhya.

The Mātsya, which was spoken by the Fish to Manu, is the sixteenth in order; / that is fourteen thousand in number, O best of speakers.

The Gāruḍa is remembered as the seventeenth, and [has] nineteen [thousand verses]; / the eighteenth is the Brahmāṇḍa, adorned with two parts,

and that contains twelve thousand and eight hundred [verses]. / Likewise the secondary Purāṇas, which were also spoken by Brahmā:

This easily obtainable, excellent Saura belongs to the Brahmapurāṇa, / joined with two collections, holy, resting upon tales of Śiva.

The first was spoken by Sanatkumāra, the second uttered by the Sun; / it is renowned indeed by the name of Sanatkumāra, O great sage.

The second is the Nārasiṃha, belonging to the Purāṇa named Padma; / the third is considered the Śaukeya, belonging to the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇa.

The fourth is the Bārhaspatya, always agreed to belong to the Vāyavya; / the fifth is remembered as the Daurvāsasa, always [belonging] to the Bhāgavata.

In the Bhaviṣya is the one spoken by Nārada, declared of old by the wise; / also the Kāpila and the Mānava, and likewise the one uttered by Uśanas,

the Brahmāṇḍa, and the Vāruṇa, and then the pair of Kālikās, / the Māheśvara, likewise the Sāmba, and the Saura that holds all matters,

the Pārāśara, the Bhāgavata, and the Kaurma as the eighteenth in sequence. / These secondary Purāṇas have been spoken by me in proper order.

Whoever recites or hears this collection of Purāṇas / shall possess infinite merit and, when deceased, go to the city of Brahmā.

Thus ends the first chapter, the description of the collection of Purāṇas, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth [section], the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].