Skandapurana 16.129

Īśvara said: / Then one should go, O great goddess, to the supreme Akṣamāleśvara, / in the northeast corner from Sāgarārka, at a distance of fifty bows.

Situated [there] is a pair of liṅgas of great splendour that pacifies sin; / formerly its name was proclaimed as Akṣamāleśvara, / [and] now that very [liṅga] is famous under the name Ugraseneśvara.

The Goddess said: / The name Akṣamāleśvara, which was previously mentioned, / how did that come about, O God? Please tell me through your grace.

Īśvara said: / Formerly, O great goddess, there was a chaste woman born from a base womb, / Akṣamālā by name, devoted to the duties of a chaste wife.

Once, when a famine occurred through the turning of time, / the seers, O great goddess, overcome by hunger, lost their senses.

All desiring to obtain food, they went to the house of an outcaste. / Learning that he had a store of grain, they begged the outcaste:

“O outcaste, O you of great understanding, save us by giving food, / who have reached danger of our lives, whose limbs are emaciated, tormented by hunger!

Ah, you are blessed, you are worthy of honor; you are not called an outcaste, / since, when this dissolution has arrived, grain remains in your house!

When the land is struck by drought and the crops have perished, / whoever feeds one brahmin, it is as if ten million have been fed.”

The outcaste said: / “Ah, what an incomparable marvel is seen here now, / that these seers have arrived at my house desiring food!

Even the food of a śūdra is not to be taken by brahmins, how much less from an outcaste?

Whether raw or cooked, whoever eats the food of a śūdra / becomes a village pig, or is born into that [pig’s] family.

The food of a brahmin is considered nectar; the food of a kṣatriya is milk; / they say the food of a vaiśya is [mere] food; the food of a śūdra is regarded as blood.

A śūdra's food, contact with a śūdra, sitting together with a śūdra, / and the receipt of food from a śūdra will bring down even a blazing [sage].

A brahmin who maintains the sacred fire, if he does not turn away from a śūdra's food, / these perish for him: his self, the Veda, and the three sacred fires.

If a brahmin dies with the food of a śūdra remaining in his stomach, / that brahmin within six months is reborn as a piśāca.

A twice-born who performs the agnihotra offering with the food of a śūdra / is born after death as an outcaste, and in this life his deity becomes a śūdra.

Whoever eats the food of a śūdra continuously for a month / attains the state of a śūdra in this life, and dying, is reborn a śūdra.

A king's food takes away splendor; a śūdra's food takes away sacred luster; / a goldsmith's food takes away longevity; a leather-cutter's food takes away fame.

An artisan's food destroys offspring; a washerman's food destroys strength; / the food of a guild and the food of a courtesan cut one off from the [heavenly] worlds.

The food of a physician is pus; the food of an unchaste woman is semen; / the food of a usurer is excrement; the food of a weapons-dealer is filth.

Whatever [sin] there would be from eating the food of these a thousand times / occurs by eating once the food of one who sells his daughter.

Whatever consequence there would be from eating his food a thousand times / indeed occurs by eating the food of outcastes only once.

Then how is it, O best of brahmins, that knowing dharma thus, / you surely wish to take the food of me, a base-minded outcaste?”

The seers said: / “One who has encountered danger to his life, who accepts food from anywhere, / is not smeared with sin, just as the sky is not smeared by mud.

Ajīgarta, starving, approached to kill his son, / and he was not smeared with sin, acting to ward off hunger.

And Bhāradvāja, distressed by hunger with his son in a lonely forest, / accepted many cows—he of great brilliance, great-minded.

Viśvāmitra, distressed by hunger, discerning what is dharma and not dharma, / came to sing [praise], taking the haunch of a dog from the hand of an outcaste.

Desiring dog's flesh in a time of distress, he did not fall from dharma; / for the sake of preserving life, Vāmadeva was not tainted.

Knowing this, O you of righteous mind, do not hesitate now! / Give food, give food to us who are begging here!”

The outcaste said: / “If indeed this task is certainly accepted by you, / then let this daughter of mine, a maiden, be taken by you.

Whoever is your foremost leader and eldest, let him certainly marry her. / Afterwards, O twice-born, I shall give you your desired year's supply of food.”

Īśvara said: / Addressed thus, O goddess, the seers, their necks bowed in shame, / conferred according to proper rule and directed [the proposal] to Vasiṣṭha.

Vasiṣṭha also, the great-minded, having explained the duty in times of distress / and looking to the needs of the moment, married the outcaste woman / named Akṣamālā, famed in the three worlds.

When she obstructed the disc of the sun by her own splendors, / she then became Arundhatī, praised by gods and demons.

Whatever sort of husband a woman is joined to according to rule, / she becomes just of that sort, like a river joined with the ocean.

Akṣamālā, born of a base womb, united with Vasiṣṭha, / attained worshipfulness, just as the female śārṅga bird did through Mandapāla.

Thus, in the course of time, the great-souled Seven Seers / together with Arundhatī came to the Prabhāsa sacred field.

They sent her to the sacred fords that grant all perfections.

While they were searching, your goddess Arundhatī / saw a single liṅga situated within a cluster of trees.

Seeing that lord of the gods of gods, she thus remembered her previous birth: / “In a previous birth, while I was in the state of menstruation,

through ignorance the lord of gods, Śiva, was surely worshipped by me here. / From that the fruit of action was obtained: outcaste status by one twice-born.

What god is equal to that Śambhu in the three worlds, / who, even when angered, gives sovereignty to the self-restrained in this way?”

Reflecting thus in her mind, she became devoted right there; / she worshipped that liṅga for a hundred divine years, O beloved.

Thus, by its power, this chaste Arundhatī is seen in the sky, / who, when beheld, destroys evil deeds.

Thus Akṣamāleśvara has been recounted to you as it truly happened. / Then, at the end of the Dvāpara age, when the twilight portion of the Kali age had arrived...

And there was a son of the Asura Andhaka known as Ugrasena; / having reached Prabhāsa, he approached the liṅga for the sake of a son.

Having learned the wondrous māhātmya of the one named Akṣamāleśvara, / and having propitiated Mahādeva for fourteen years, / he then obtained a son known as the Asura Kaṃsa.

Beginning from that time, it became Ugraseneśvara, / destroying the sin of all creatures by its very darśana and touch.

Killing a brahmin, drinking wine, theft, and intercourse with the guru's wife— / these are called the great sins; they are destroyed by its darśana.

Right there on Ṛṣipañcamī, when auspicious Bhādrapada has arrived, / having worshipped Akṣamāleśvara, one is freed from the fear of hell.

They praise the gift of a cow there, and likewise food and water, / for the destruction of all sins and for unending bliss hereafter.

Thus has been told to you, O goddess, the origin of Akṣamāleśvara; / this māhātmya, which pacifies sin and removes sorrow, has been heard.

Thus ends the one hundred and twenty-ninth chapter, entitled 'Description of the Māhātmya of Ugraseneśvara,' in the first [section, the] Prabhāsakṣetramāhātmya, of the seventh [section, the] Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].