Skandapurana 1.2.11

Nandikeśvara said:

Then Virañci [Brahmā], making an effort, thinking, “I shall see its summit,”

assumed the form of a swan capable of crossing the path of the sky. (1)

Viṣṇu, resolute in body, assumed the form of a boar,

whose majesty made easy the sport of splitting the earth. (2)

Eager to return after discovering its base,

his bristles stiffened by design, he struck the earth with both his tusks.

Tearing up the earth, supporter of all beings, with his snout, looking downward,

the great boar was seen, as if bowing to the pillar of fire.

Filling [the quarters] with the deep, throaty roar of a playful boar,

full of vast zeal, he began to enter Pātāla.

Wherever he entered, standing there just the same,

the deceitful boar beheld that very pillar of fire.

From the chasm opened in the earth, serpents appeared

like sprouting roots of the pillar of fire, some led by Śeṣa.

Standing like the root-bulb of the golden mountain [Meru],

having become the support [of the world], the primeval tortoise was seen by Acyuta.

Near the ankles of the earth, standing as bearers of the burden,

the elephants of the directions were seen, beautiful and sluggish with rut.

And by the foe of Madhu, that great frog too was observed,

upon whose back the entire disk of the earth is established.

Adhokṣaja also beheld that primal supporting power (Ādhāraśakti),

by whose grace even Śeṣa, the tortoise, and the others carry the burden.

Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Nitala,

Talātala, Pratala, and Mahātala—in this order

the lotus-eyed lord saw all seven nether worlds,

filled with wonder at all their various dwellers of diverse forms.

He passed beyond the city named Bhogavatī, and that of Virocana’s son [Bali];

he entered other, extremely deep dwellings of the Daityas.

‘This has been seen! That has been seen!’—with curiosity aroused,

Mādhava, bewildered in mind, kept searching for its base.

Even far beneath the ocean, by that boar

that pillar of fire was seen just the same, unchanging.

The earth was merely split open; the mass of waters was stirred;

its base was not seen at all by Viṣṇu in the form of a boar.

Wandering thus for thousands of years, his mind bewildered,

the playful boar was unable to see its base.

With broken hooves, crushed tusks, and shattered body,

with broken snout, the boar plunged into intense exhaustion.

As he sighed in weariness, that unbridled pride of his

vanished in an instant along with the desire to see its base.

Though his vow remained unfulfilled, he was eager to return;

yet the lotus-eyed one could not step forward even from foot to foot.

For him whose eyes were blinded by exhaustion as he remained within Pātāla,

that very splendour illuminated the path once more.

Though somehow emerged from the shoreless ocean,

the disguised boar became drowned in a flowing sea of perspiration.

As if by a rope connected with the radiance of the pillar of fire,

having reached the motionless forest with difficulty, Janārdana returned.

‘Since the base of this mass of splendour was not seen by me,

its crown can by no means have been seen by the Creator either.

From where this mass of splendour originally arose,

having returned from there, I shall seek refuge in Śiva, the Lord.

For he is the God who surpasses all, yet for long, with eyes blinded by delusion,

he was forgotten by me; therefore has such an evil consequence arisen.’

Having thus resolved, his pride abandoned, the lotus-eyed one quickly returned

to that very place where stood that pillar composed of fire.

Thus ends the eleventh chapter, titled “The Description of Viṣṇu’s Search for the Lower Part of the Liṅga”, in the latter half of the Aruṇācalamāhātmya, in the first Māheśvarakhaṇḍa of the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the collection of eighty-one thousand verses.