Skandapurana 14.14

Pulastya said: / Then, O best of kings, one should go to the supreme god Siddheśvara, / the giver of perfections to living beings, properly installed in ancient times by a Siddha. 1.

There a Siddha named Viśvāvasu performed great austerity; / having installed Śiva, devoted to bhakti, [he practiced] for many years. 2.

Having conquered anger, having conquered pride, having conquered all actions of the senses, / at the end of that thousand years the blessed Lord whose emblem is the bull / was pleased, O king; he came in person to give him darśana. 3.

The Great God said to him, 'I am the giver of boons', O king. 4.

The blessed Lord said: / Choose a boon—blessing be upon you—whatever is in your mind. / Being pleased, I will grant it to you, even if it is very difficult to attain. 5.

Viśvāvasu said: / Having meditated on this liṅga with resolution in mind, O best of the gods, / let [a mortal] obtain all desires by your grace, O Śaṃkara! 6.

Pulastya said: / Having said, 'So be it,' he vanished right there. / Then, having gone to Siddheśvara, [people] attain perfection by the thousands. 7.

Through the power of that liṅga, they obtained their cherished desires; / thereupon, all religious rites went to ruin on the surface of the earth. 8.

No one sacrificed with Vedic offerings, nor did they bestow gifts; / by the grace of Siddheśvara, men on earth attained perfection. 9.

And when sacrifices and gifts had been broken off, O best of kings, / all the thirty [gods] headed by Indra were plunged into supreme distress. 10.

And perceiving the impediment to sacrifices, Vāsava, to impede it, / covered it with his thunderbolt so that perfection would not arise.

Even so, in the presence of that Siddheśa, O best of kings, / perfection of an action arises and sin is completely destroyed.

A man who touches it on the fourteenth lunar day of Māgha on a Monday, O best of kings, / whether in the light or the dark [fortnight], becomes a perfected one.

Even today perfection arises; this has been spoken truly by me. / Therefore, having gone to Siddheśvara and bowed, one will attain the good path.

Thus ends the fourteenth chapter, named 'The Description of the Māhātmya of Siddheśvara,' in the third [section], the Arbudakhaṇḍa, of the seventh [part], the Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].