Skandapurana 1.4.13: adhyāyaḥ 15

Varāṅgī said:
I have been ruined, cast away, terrified, and tormented
repeatedly by the terrible lord of the gods, who acted like one having no master.

Seeing no end to my sorrow, I have resolved to give up my life.
Grant me a son who will be a deliverer from this dreadful sorrow, if you have compassion.

Addressed thus, the lord of the daityas, distressed, thought in his heart:
"Even though I have no desire for demonic states of mind,

nevertheless, from the scriptures I consider that a beloved wife is to be pitied,
because a man with a wife, having taken up all life-stages into his own life-stage,

crosses over the ocean of misfortune as if [crossing] an ocean with water-vessels.
Relying upon whom, householders easily conquered the enemies [that are] the senses,

which are hard to conquer by other stages of life, just as a fortress commander [vanquishes] bandits;
and no one is able to emulate the mistress of the house.

Moreover, as one wishes to apply oneself to duty throughout life or in its entirety;
because one's self comes to be in her, she is therefore called jāyā.

And since she must be maintained, she is therefore remembered as bhāryā.
She alone is called the house, and therefore she is remembered as the housewife (gṛhiṇī).

She protects from the taint of worldly existence, hence she is [called] a wife (kalatra).
Who indeed ought not to have compassion for such a beloved?

Devala indeed said that a man has three lights:
wife, ritual action, and sacred knowledge; these three must be secured with effort.

Therefore, if I, being her husband, do not protect her when she is tormented,
then according to the declarations of the scriptures I shall go to the depth of hell, without a doubt.

I too am capable of conquering this Indra so as to be free from debt.
I shall fulfill her desire again; I will give her a son of great strength."

Reflecting thus, Vajrāṅga, his eyes agitated with anger,
resolved upon austerity once more in order to retaliate against the great Indra.

Knowing his intention, which was even fiercer,
Brahmā came with haste to where that son of Diti was.

The Lord, the master, spoke to him with sweet words.

Brahmā said:
For what purpose do you wish for a harsh observance yet again?
Having turned toward food, O daitya of great vows, tell that to me.

The fruit that is obtained by fasting for a thousand years,
was obtained by you in merely an instant when you gave up food that was received.

For the abandonment [of pleasures] by those who have not obtained their desires is not considered as great
as when one renounces a desire that has been obtained, O lotus-eyed one.
Having heard these words of Brahmā, the daitya, with folded hands, said:

The daitya said:
I shall perform dreadful austerity for the sake of my wife, O Grandfather;
and I am resolved for the sake of a son who will destroy the pride of the gods.

Hearing this speech, the god born from the lotus womb,
the four-faced one, then, pleased, spoke to the king of the daityas:

Brahmā said:
Enough of your austerity, my child; do not enter into the extent of distress.
You shall have a son of great strength named Tāraka,

who will loosen the braids of hair desired by the women of the gods.
Spoken to thus, the king of the daityas, bowing to the Great-grandfather,

having taken leave and gone to his queen, delighted her with joy.
And the couple, having achieved their purpose, then went to their hermitage.

And then the fair-complexioned Varāṅgī, having conceived an embryo,
bore it in her womb indeed for a full thousand years.

Then, at the end of the thousand years, Varāṅgī gave birth.
While that lord of the daityas, terrifying to the worlds, was being born,

the entire earth trembled, and the great oceans were agitated;
the mountains also shook, and terrifying winds blew.

The best of seers muttered prayers like deer pierced by a hunter;
the sun and the others lost their luster, and mists covered the directions.

When that great asura was born, all the great asuras
arrived there, delighted, and likewise the asura women.

Filled with joy, the asura women sang and danced.
Then, when the great festival of the dānavas took place, O son of Pṛthā,

the gods, along with the great Indra, became despondent in mind.
As soon as he was born, Tāraka, the lord of the daityas of fierce valor,

was consecrated by the daityas Kuraṅga, Mahiṣa, and others,
joined by all the great asuras, into the great sovereignty of all asuras.

Having attained the great sovereignty, Tāraka, O best of Pāṇḍus,
spoke these words endowed with reason to the foremost dānavas:

"Listen, all you asuras of great strength, to my words.
Having heard, let your intellect remain firm upon my instruction.

By the nature of our kind, an imperishable enmity has grown;
I shall wage that enmity both [for our duty] and for victory over them."

"However, I consider that confronting the gods must be accomplished through austerity. / Therefore, O sons of Danu, I shall first perform severe austerity.

Then we will conquer the gods and enjoy the three worlds. / For a man who employs the proper means is indeed one whose fortune becomes stable.

One who is improper and unsteady is unable to preserve even what has been obtained." / Having heard that speech of that asura, all the dānavas,

amazed, said to him: "Excellent! Excellent!" / He then went to an excellent cave of the Pāriyātra mountain,

strewn with flowers of all seasons, illuminated by various herbs, / affording shelter in diverse caverns that were wondrous with the flow of essences of various minerals,

filled with manifold forms, teeming with various flocks of birds, / endowed with diverse cascades, and possessing various bodies of water.

Having reached that cave, the daitya performed immense austerity. / Holding the Pāśupata initiation, he chanted the five mantras.

Without food, performing the five fires austerity, he spent ten thousand years indeed. / Then, cutting a karṣa [of flesh] from his own body day after day,

he offered flesh into the fire; thereby he became fleshless. / Then, his body stripped of flesh, he became a mass of austerity.

All living beings blazed up on all sides from his brilliance, / and all the gods became agitated, terrified by his austerity.

At that juncture, Brahmā attained the highest satisfaction. / To grant a boon to Tāraka, he went to the peak of the mountain.

Having reached that king of mountains, seated upon his swan-vehicle, / the god then addressed Tāraka in a sweet voice:

Brahmā said: / "Arise, son, from your austerity! Nothing is impossible for you now. / Choose the desired boon that dwells in your mind."

Being thus addressed, the daitya Tāraka, with folded palms, spoke to the lord:

Tāraka said: / "O Lord, by our inherent nature we have incurred enmity with the immortals, / and by them the daityas were wiped out, being treated cruelly and mercilessly.

My thought is: 'May I be their rescuer! / May I be invulnerable to all living beings, and to weapons of great power,

and also to the immortals!' This is the boon that lies in my heart. / Grant this to me, O Lord of the gods; I do not desire any other boon."

Then Virañci, the leader of the immortals, said to that daitya: / "For an embodied being, holding a body without death is not proper; / for death is certain for one who is born—this is the truth stated by the sacred tradition.

Reflecting on this, choose a boon from which you have no fear." / Then the lord of the daityas, having reflected, [chose death only] from an infant of seven days.

Tāraka said: / "Except for an infant of seven days, / may I be invulnerable even to the gods—this is requested by me!"

Deluded by pride, the great asura chose [his] death from Brahmā. / Brahmā then said to him, "So be it," according to the word of Hara.

The god went to heaven, and the daitya also went to his own abode. / When that daitya emerged from his austerity, the lords of the daityas then

surrounded him, just as birds surround a tree laden with fruit. / When that Tāraka, the son of Diti, was established in his great kingdom,

in the place designated by Brahmā on the northern shore of the great ocean, / O son of Pṛthā, auspicious trees of all seasons sprang up there.

Radiance, splendour, resolve, intelligence, and unbroken sovereignty / surrounded that dānava, all of them without defect, filled with virtues.

His limbs anointed with black aloe, adorned with a great crown, / equipped with beautiful armlets, seated upon a great lion-throne,

the foremost apsarases danced, and the gandharvas sang; / the moon and the sun served as lights, and the wind functioned as fans; / the planets were his heralds, declaring the decree of his life.

Thus, having attained the kingdom through his own arm-strength, rejoicing exceedingly, / that daitya, proud of the strength of all his fully raised limbs, once summoned and spoke to his ministers.

Thus ends the fifteenth chapter, named "Description of the Rise of Tārakāsura," in the Māhātmya of Kumāreśa, in the Kaumārikākhaṇḍa of the first section, the Māheśvarakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skandapurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand verses.