Skandapurana 1.4.10: adhyāyaḥ 12

Nārada said: / Then they saw the great sage abiding in self-restraint, O Pārtha, / endowed with the yoga of action, as though holding the form of austerity,

bearing on his head matted locks tawny from the three daily ritual ablutions, / named Lomaśa, like a fire sprinkled with clarified butter,

carrying a bundle of grass in his left hand for shade, the best of brahmins, / and holding a rosary in his right, walking upon the path of Maitra.

Not harming creatures moving on earth with harsh words and the like, / he who attains perfection through recitation is called a Maitra sage.

And seeing him in Kalāpagrāma, that crane, king, twice-born, owl, vulture, and tortoise / bowed to that ancient treasure of austerity.

Having been exceedingly honored by him with welcome, a seat, and hospitality, / confident, they properly spoke to him the matter remaining in their hearts.

The tortoise said: / This Indradyumna, lord of the earth, is foremost among performers of sacrifice; / he was cast down from the surface of heaven by the Creator due to the vanishing of his fame.

And having obtained the restoration of his fame through Mārkaṇḍeya and the others, O best of beings, / he does not desire heaven, which is terrifying because of another fall and other [evils].

Favored by you, he desires supreme welfare here. / This king, fit to be guided, is your disciple, O venerable one; / he has been brought here to your presence by me; speak rightly to his desire.

Indeed, aiding others is declared to be the vow of the virtuous, / especially toward those who are fit to be guided and have taken up the conduct of a disciple.

Toward those unfit to be guided, the wicked, it is undoubtedly declared [otherwise] by the virtuous; / it produces hatred and even the death of one or the other.

Vigilant toward those fit to be guided, this sage bestows / that very [knowledge]; thus you know dharma, whence do we?

Lomaśa said: / O tortoise, all this spoken by you to us today is fitting; / it accords with the treatise on dharma; we are reminded of that ancient [truth].

Speak, O king, with full confidence, the doubt situated in your heart. / Who told you what? I will declare the remainder, of this there is no doubt.

Indradyumna said: / O venerable one, let only my first question be answered: / Even in the summer season, when the sun is in the middle [of the sky], why do you have no hermitage,

even the mere measure of a hut, since shade is [made] by grass held in the hands over the head?

Lomaśa said: / Death is inevitable, and this body will fall; / for whose sake is a house built by those dwelling in the midst of an impermanent existence?

For him whose friend might be Death, or by whom the supreme nectar has been drunk, / it is fitting to say: 'This will be mine tomorrow.'

This day, which was to be in thousands of yugas, has come to pass; / that too has reached presentness today—what talk can there be of the limit of death?

The effect follows the cause; this body arose from semen; / how can it attain purity, like a charcoal that has been washed? Speak!

Therefore, even for its sake, how are those conquered by the group of six enemies / not ashamed when committing sin, O best of kings?

Therefore, born here from Brahmā, sprung from two grains of sand, / reciting and listening to what is stated in the Veda, how shall this [person] live?

Even so, the illusion of Viṣṇu deludes the indiscriminate person; / even those with a lifespan of a hundred years do not recognize Death seated in the heart.

Teeth are unsteady, fortune is unsteady, youth and life are unsteady, O king; / giving is very unsteady, and likewise the house of human beings.

Knowing thus the essence of worldly existence to be completely transient, / for whose sake is the acquisition of a hut and other things undertaken, O king?

Indradyumna said: / You alone, O venerable one, are heard of as long-lived in the three worlds; / for that purpose I have come; so why this speech of yours?

Lomaśa said: / In every cosmic age, the loss of one hair occurs from my body; / and when all are lost, my death will take place.

Behold, the region of my knee has become devoid of hair to the extent of two finger-breadths / on my body; therefore I am afraid: when one must die, of what use are houses?

Nārada said:
Hearing these words of his, that king laughed, greatly astonished, / and asked him the reason for such a lifespan.

Indradyumna said:
O brahmin, I ask you about this lifespan of yours which is such, / so long: is this the power of charity or of austerity?

Lomaśa said:
Listen, O king, I will tell the holy story arising from my previous life, / joined with the duty towards Śiva, destroying sin.

Formerly, I was a śūdra, extremely poor on the face of the earth; / I wandered upon the surface of the earth, sorely distressed by hunger.

Then, at midday, I saw a great liṅga inside a thicket, / and, not far away, a reservoir of water.

Then, having entered that water, having drunk, and having bathed, I bathed that liṅga / of Śambhu, and worship was performed with auspicious lotuses.

Then, my throat parched with hunger, having bowed down to that Śrīkaṇṭha / and set out again upon the road, I died, O best of kings.

Then I was born in the house of a brahmin as a son remembering past lives, / because of that ceremonial bath of the Śivaliṅga and the worship with lotuses performed just once.

Remembering that this world is a false play of appearances, an illusory appearance of truth, / consisting of ignorance—having understood it thus, I took to muteness.

Since that brahmin in old age had obtained me / by propitiating Maheśvara, my name was arranged as Īśāna.

Then, out of affection, that brahmin administered very many medicines to me, / resolved: “I will remove his muteness.”

[He employed] many recitations of mantras, physicians, and other means; / and seeing the folly of my parents,

whose minds were bound by the great illusion, there was laughter in my mind then. / When I attained youth in that manner, having left my home at night,

and having worshipped Śambhu with lotuses, I then went to sleep. / Then, when my father died, I was abandoned as a fool

by my relatives. Recognized then as living on a diet of fruits, / recognized [thus], I worshipped the Lord likewise with many kinds of lotuses.

Then, at the end of a hundred years, the moon-crested granter of boons / appeared visibly [and] was asked: “Grant the destruction of old age and death!”

Īśvara said:
Freedom from old age and death does not exist for one who bears name and form. / Even I must undergo the fall of the body; make a limit to your life.

Hearing these words of Śambhu, this was chosen by me then: / “Let there be the fall of one hair at the end of a kalpa, and death at the destruction of all [things].

After that, let me become your attendant: this is the boon desired by me.” / Having said, “So be it,” the blessed lord Hara vanished.

And from that time on, I became devoted to austerity. / One is freed from sins such as the killing of a brahmin through the worship of Śiva

with sun-lotuses or other lotuses; there is no doubt in this matter. / Act in this way, O great king, and you too will attain what is desired.

For a person devoted to Hara, nothing is difficult to attain in the three worlds. / Having gathered inward the external activity—both the senses of knowledge and action and the rest—

the absorption continually in Sadāśiva is said to be the yoga of the senses. / Because of its difficulty, Śiva himself personally proclaimed the external yoga.

And worship with the five elements surely bestows a distinguished fruit. / Not affected by afflictions, karmic fruition, and latencies,

one who worships Īśāna and chants the praṇava attains liberation. / When the destruction of all sin has occurred, contemplation arises upon Śiva.

For those whose intellect is struck by sin, even talk of Śiva is difficult to attain. / Difficult to attain is birth in Bhārata; difficult to attain is the worship of Śiva;

difficult to attain is ritual ablution in the Jāhnavī; devotion to Śiva is very difficult to attain; / difficult to attain is giving gifts to a brahmin; difficult to attain is the worship of fire;

and by those of little merit, worship of Puruṣottama is hard to achieve.

Yoga is attained by a hundred thousand bow-lengths; Agni by half of that; / the worthy recipient by a hundred thousand; Revā and Rudra by sixty [thousand].

Thus has this all been declared by me to you, O king, / how my lifespan became long through worshipping Maheśvara.

Nothing is difficult to attain, nothing is hard to achieve, and nothing is impossible / for high-souled men who practice devotion to Śiva in the three worlds: this is certain.

Beholding the perfection of Nandīśvara in that very body through the worship of Śiva, / what man, O king, would not bow down to Śaṃkara?

And when the king Śveta was bowing down to Śrīkaṇṭha, / even Time met with destruction; who would not worship that Lord?

By whose will this universe is born, maintained, / and dissolved at the end—who would not take refuge in him?

This is the secret; this alone is the foremost duty for men here: the worship of Śiva alone, O king. / If people pass through the path of obstacles, instantly the man who has bowed to Śiva becomes Śiva himself, in truth.

Thus ends the twelfth chapter, entitled “Description of the Māhātmya of the Worship of Śiva, in the Account of Lomaśa, in the Manifestation of the Earth”, in the Kaumārikākhaṇḍa of the first Section, the Māheśvarakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skandapurāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand verses.