Skandapurana 1.4.47: adhyāyaḥ 49

Arjuna said:

'Having heard of the exceedingly wondrous sacred fords and liṅgas, O great sage,

from your lotus mouth, my mind rejoices greatly.

The principal sacred fords of Mahīnagara as well,

which was established by you, O sage—describe them to me, O lord!'

Nārada said:

'The sacred fords that are in glorious Mahīnagara, O Phālguna,

I shall relate to you, where the sun, the lord Jayāditya, resides.

Whatever person here glorifies the name of Jayāditya,

freed from all diseases, he too obtains the desire of his heart.

Merely by beholding him, a faithful person is filled with auspicious blessings,

and is freed from inauspicious things, O son of Pṛthā.

Listen, O son of Pṛthā, I shall tell you the origin of that deity;

hearing it or reciting it, one obtains grace from the sun.

Having established this settlement, I, in the course of time,

went at will to the realm of the sun, desiring his darśana.

Having honored me, who was bowed down and seated, with an offering of argha,

the radiant god said this with a sweet voice, as if smiling:

'From where do you come, O brahmin, and where are you going?'

And where, O sage Nārada, has this time been spent by you?”

Nārada said:

Addressed thus by the Sun, I then spoke this word to him:

“I wandered in the Bhārata section, and from Mahīnagara,

I have arrived, O all-pervading one, O Sun, for your darśana.”

The Sun said:

“The place that was established by you—the brahmins who are there,

tell me their qualities. Indeed, what virtues do those twice-born have?”

Nārada said:

Questioned thus by the Lord, I spoke this word once again:

“O Lord, if I praise them, there will be the reproach: ‘He praises his own.’

Or why should I blame those who do not deserve it? There is difficulty in both cases.

Moreover, since the majesty of those great-souled ones is supreme,

if a meager description is made, it would indeed be a great fault on my part.

If there is a desire to hear of those foremost twice-born honored by me,

then you should go and observe them yourself; this is my opinion, O Sun.”

Hearing this word of mine, the Sun was greatly astonished,

and the Lord of Day said again and again, “I shall see them myself.”

Then, having assumed the form of a brahmin and dismissed me, the Sun,

blazing in the sky and through yogic power, went to the bank of the Arṇavā.

Bearing matted hair tawny from ritual ablutions at the three junctures of the day,

an elderly twice-born of great splendor was seen by my brahmins.

Then, their eyes wide with intense joy, headed by Hārīta,

rising from the hall of Vedic study, those twice-born ran toward the twice-born.

Bowing to that foremost twice-born, out of intense joy they said this:

“Today our day is auspicious; today this place is supreme,

since you yourself, O best of brahmins, have come here.

For solely out of compassion for a blessed householder, the best of the twice-born

arrive in the guise of guests for the sake of purification; of this there is no doubt.

Therefore, by the pacing of your feet, purify our homes,

and together with us, [purify] this place by your darśana and by taking a meal.”

The guest said:

“Food is of two kinds, O brahmins: the ordinary and the supreme.

I properly desire the supreme food to be given to me.”

Having heard this from the guest, Hārīta said to his son:

“Son, an eight-year-old Kamaṭha, do you understand what was spoken by the twice-born?”

Kamaṭha said:

“Father, having bowed to you, I will speak of such supreme food,

and I will satisfy the twice-born by offering the supreme food.

For indeed, when a son is born, a father becomes free from debt;

I will make that saying true by fully satisfying the excellent guest.

Food is of two kinds, and this is their distinction:

one is called the ordinary, and the other is the supreme food.

Among them, that which is called ordinary is the satisfaction of the group

of the twenty-four cosmic principles headed by Prakṛti; so it is said.

And that food has six flavors, and they say it has five categories;

by consuming it, the field characterized by the physical body is satisfied.

Just as the other is called supreme, it is named supreme food;

the Self is called supreme, and that would be its food.

Therefore, that hearing of dharma of various kinds—

that is called the food; the enjoyer is the knower of the field; the two ears are the mouth.

I will give that to the foremost twice-born. Ask, O brahmin, whatever you wish!

According to my ability, I will satisfy you in the assembly of brahmins.”

Nārada said:

Hearing these great words of Kamaṭha, that guest,

praising him in his mind alone, then asked this question:

“How is a living being born, and how does it dissolve?

And having been reduced to ashes, where does it go?”

Kamaṭha said:

“Having first bowed to the Guru, and next to Dharma,

I shall answer this question sung in the Vedas according to my ability, O twice-born.

Indeed, threefold action is the cause of a living being’s birth:

meritorious, sinful, and mixed, consisting of sattva, rajas, and tamas.

Among them, that which is called sāttvika attains heaven;

fallen from heaven by the passage of time, one becomes wealthy, righteous, and happy.

Likewise, that which is called tāmasa attains hell;

having suffered many torments, one attains the state of immobile creatures.

Through seeing, touching, sharing food, and sitting together with great beings,

transmigrating through a long course of time, one becomes human.

Even so, surrounded by misery, poverty, and the like, with defective senses,

he is visible to all people; for this is the mark of sin.

Now, he whose action is mixed attains animal birth;

by association with great beings alone, transmigrating, he becomes human.

He whose merit is greater and sin is lesser

first becomes unhappy and afterwards is endowed with happiness.

He whose sin is greater and merit is lesser

is first happy and then unhappy; this is the characteristic of mixed [karma].

Hear how human birth comes to be in this regard:

At the union of the semen and ovum of a man and a woman,

the soul, completely freed from all faults, clearly transmigrates,

endowed with the qualities of mind and intellect, accompanied by good and bad [actions].

Having entered the womb, the soul resides in the embryo at its fluid stage;

and stupified, it remains there in the fluid stage for just a month.

In the second month it remains having become a solid mass;

the formation of its limbs occurs in the third month.

And in the fourth month bones are produced;

the birth of skin is in the fifth month; in the sixth is the appearance of hair.

In the seventh month its consciousness is awakened;

and in the seventh month it partakes of what is eaten and drunk by the mother.

In the eighth and ninth months it is then intensely agitated;

with its limbs wrapped in the amnion, its fingers clasped to its mouth.

An eunuch lies in the middle, a female on the left, and a male on the right;

it stays in the abdominal region, facing the digestive fire from behind.

It recognizes without doubt that womb in which it stays;

it remembers the entire course of even many births.

What can be seen in blind darkness? From the smell it falls into deep delusion.

When cold water is drunk by the mother, it feels cold; likewise, it feels hot when [she drinks] hot [water].

During the mother's physical exertion it suffers distress, and it feels pain from illness.

Other severe diseases arise that cannot be noticed by the father and mother;

due to its delicacy, these cause sharp agony to it.

Even a very brief time it perceives as equal to a hundred years.

It burns intensely in the womb because of its past actions,

and repeatedly forms resolutions for the sake of virtuous deeds:

“If I obtain birth and life in the human realm,

then I shall do that by which liberation will clearly come to be.”

While it is thinking thus, after the rite of parting the hair,

those two months pass in suffering, shaped with three pairs [of limbs folded].

Then, when its time is full, impelled by the wind of birth,

the creature turns head downward, experiencing intense agony.

Head downward, it emerges through the narrow opening of the vulva,

even while being tormented with a pain like the flaying of the skin.

The touch of hands and the like feels to it like the touch of a saw;

being born, deluded, it experiences this for just a month.

Subject to past actions, its womb-knowledge perishes;

then it performs actions that are white, red, and black.

[The body,] framed with rafters and pillars of bone and fastened by sinews,

smeared with the clay of blood and flesh, a vessel for the matter of feces and urine,

well-secured by seven walls, thatched with the grass of body hair,

having one great gate, the mouth, adorned with eight windows,

possessing two lip-doors, and sealed with the bolts of teeth,

having a stream of channels and sweat, flooded with phlegm and bile,

overtaken by old age and sorrow, standing in the fiery mouth of Time,

ruined by passion, hatred, and the like, arisen from the six sheaths.

Thus, O twice-born, this bodily house is produced for man,

in which dwells the knower of the field as the householder, with intellect as the mistress of the house,

living there while bringing about liberation, heaven, or even hell.

Thus ends the forty-ninth chapter, titled "Description of the Origin of the Embodied Soul's Body" in the dialogue between Kamaṭha and the Sun, in the Kaumārikākhaṇḍa of the first [section], the Māheśvarakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand verses.