Skandapurana 16.19

The Goddess said: / If it is so, why is the moon not borne in full by you? / With respect to the inclusion of the digits, tell me the reason for that, O Lord. 1.

Īśvara said: / The Great Digit, O Goddess, is declared to be sixteenfold as Amā. / Present as the supreme Māyā, she supports the bodies of embodied beings. 2.

The digits of the moon that begin with the new moon and end with the full moon— / those are named lunar days, proclaimed to be sixteen indeed. 3.

Amā is the subtle supreme power; you are proclaimed to be that, O Goddess! / United with dissolution and origination, they stand manifested by the order of time. 4.

The sixteen vowels, which begin with creation and end with dissolution, O beloved, / are to be known by knowers of time as the limbs of time. 5.

A truṭi, a lava, a nimeṣa, a kalā, a kāṣṭhā, a muhūrta, / night, day, a fortnight, months, an ayana, a year, a yuga, 6.

a manvantara, a kalpa, and a mahākalpa are the sixteen. / That which is the projecting digit, resting upon the living soul, 7.

she creates the whole universe along with the two equinoxes. / Likewise, that which is the withdrawing [digit] dissolves the universe, O beloved. / A fourth part of the wink of an eye is called the time of a truṭi; / and know a nimiṣa to be twice that, O Maheśvarī! 9.

A kāṣṭhā is made of thirty nimiṣas; a kalā is made of twenty of them; / a muhūrta consists of twenty kalās; and a day consists of fifteen of those. 10.

The measure of night is known to be equal to day; a day-and-night is made of both. / A fortnight consists of fifteen of those; a month is said to consist of two fortnights. 11.

An ayana consists of six months; a year is in two ayanas. / Forty lakhs and three lakhs again, 12.

and twenty thousand [solar years] are to be known as a solar four-yuga cycle. / By seventy-one four-yuga cycles a manvantara is declared. 13.

This is the lifespan of an Indra, proclaimed as the completion of a summary. / When fourteen Indras have dissolved, a kalpa becomes a day of Brahmā. 14.

And the night is of equal length, consisting of a thousand four-yuga cycles. / By this measure of a day, he lives for a hundred years, O beloved. 15.

In half a wink of my eye, fourteen thousand / [Brahmās] perish, and countless grandfathers after Viṣṇu. 16.

In this order, O Goddess of Gods, this universe arose, / manifold in form and endless through the division of moon and sun. 17.

When the digit is without beginning or end, unborn and imperishable, O Goddess, / then, connected with it, the moon rests facing downward in it. 18.

Thus the wane and rise established through the moon and sun are to be known. / The order of creation has been spoken by me; hear now of dissolution. 19.

A mahākalpa is destroyed by kalpas; a kalpa is destroyed by manvantaras; / having multiplied a month by fortnights, and divided that by days and nights, 20.

a day-and-night by a muhūrta, and a muhūrta struck by kalās; / having made a kalā struck by kāṣṭhās, and divided a kāṣṭhā by nimiṣas, 21.

and having struck a nimiṣa by lavas, and divided a lava by truṭis; / that which transcends that is tranquil, changeless, and without characteristics. 22.

And this supreme Māyā of his, a digit, is borne upon [my] head. / She is the supreme power of the God of Gods, whose form is the universe, O beloved; / having deluded progeny, she causes it to transmigrate in saṃsāra, O Pārvatī. 23.

Thus, O Goddess, is this world, characterized by origination and maintenance; / where the whole is born, there indeed it dissolves again. 24.

This power composed of Māyā, having the nature of the pure and the impure, / abiding in the form of the moon, reveals [herself] to you, O Goddess. 25.

The Goddess said: / Tormented by the five fires for crores of years in various ways, / that austerity of mine has borne fruit today, O God, Lord of the Universe! 26.

The process of creation has been understood by me, and dissolution, O Maheśvara, / as well as the nature of the moon's origin and the measure of the digits. 27.

Now a doubt rests in my heart, O Lord of Gods; / tell me of a great wonder, O God, O Maheśvara! 28.

The moon, born indeed from nectar, causes delight to all; / and he is dear to you, O Lord of Gods, the moon is your favorite. 29.

And in the word 'candra', the root 'cadi' is accepted in the sense of gladdening. / But in whiteness and in the nature of water, it is conceived by me.

The moon is the lord of all medicinal herbs, the supreme delight of the ancestors, / devoted to you, having refuge in you, and intent on your service.

Even so, this spotted [moon] causes me astonishment. / O goddess, his crest is adorned with the garland of cosmic collisions,

If there is distress even for the moon seated upon your head, / then, O Lord, those who suffer grief in worldly existence are truly not to be pitied.

For there is no one in the three worlds, nor will there ever be, / who would be capable of causing the destruction of this grief.

Doubt exists for everyone just as it does for me, O Maheśvara. / What is that cause which arose, by which the spot of Soma occurred?

What is this reason, O God? Tell me, O Maheśvara. / How can there be a spot even for him whose origin is in nectar?

And he is dear to you, O Lord of the gods, yet the spot remains. / My curiosity is great, O God; you ought to tell me the truth.

Addressed thus by Pārvatī, the God of gods, Maheśvara, / the Lord, highly pleased, spoke with love to the daughter of the mountain:

Īśvara said: / Why has this great doubt arisen for you today, O lady of excellent complexion? / It should not be directed against me; be free from anxiety, my dear. / Through the influence of your father, the moon came to have a spot.

Due to the inevitability of past actions, O goddess, and from transgressing Dakṣa's command, / the hare-marked [moon] was told: 'Treat [all] your wives equally!'

He violated that word, and therefore the moon was cursed, my dear. / But as for this reason for the spot about which you have asked, O goddess,

in kalpa after kalpa, there is a distinct condition due to various causes, O spirited lady; / and that is countless, and it is impossible for me to recount it, my dear.

Countless moons come into being again and again, / and they perish, O ruler of the gods, across all the intervals between Manus.

Countless are the names of the kalpas, countless are the Pitāmahas, / and the Haris too are countless; Maheśvara alone is one.

Tens of thousands of crores of eggs of Brahmā are here, my dear; / like water bubbles, O goddess, they have arisen simply in sport.

Here and there, four-faced Brahmās, Haris, and Bhavas / were created by Pradhāna at that time, and obtained proximity to Śambhu.

And in the same way, he brings about mutual dissolution, beginning and end. / The god Maheśvara is the maker of creation, destruction, and maintenance.

Joined with rajas in creation, situated in sattva during preservation, / endowed with tamas in cosmic reabsorption, thus I remain threefold, O goddess.

Therefore Brahmā is of Maheśvara; Śiva is the master of Brahmā; / Sadāśiva becomes Viṣṇu; and hence Brahmā is the self of all.

He alone is the Lord Rudra, Viṣṇu, and the ruler of the universe. / In this cosmic egg are these worlds, and within it is this whole universe.

The moons, suns, and planets in this cosmic egg, O wise goddess, / those that will be and those that have passed, cannot be counted at all.

In this present Vārāhakalpa, however, O wise one, / six husbands of Rohiṇī have passed away in the past, O great goddess.

This seventh one, born from nectar, is present now, O great goddess, / who is seen now wasted away due to Dakṣa's curse, O goddess.

Now, when the second half of the life of Vedhas had arrived, / in his thirtieth kalpa known as the Pitṛkalpa,

when the Svāyambhuva interval had arrived, you were indeed Satī at its beginning. / At that time, O great goddess, he who was Dakṣa was your father.

The birth of that Dakṣa is proclaimed to be from the breath of Prajāpati. / In this Manvantara, O goddess, Dakṣa was born of Pracatas.

Now, my dear, Dakṣa will be born from the right thumb. / In every yuga, all these twice-born ones such as Dakṣa come into being,

and then they perish again; a wise person is not bewildered by this. / Because of insult from him, O goddess, you abandoned your body in the past.

For so long was I separated from you, abandoned by you in the past, O goddess, / until the Cākṣuṣa interval of the Varāhakalpa, my dear.

And this Manu is the twenty-first in the kalpa named Vārāha. / In kalpa after kalpa, O great goddess, your name would be different.

In this Vārāha kalpa, however, gained through the austerity of Himavat, / you were born as the goddess Pārvatī when the Cākṣuṣa interval had passed.

One day of Brahmā, for the span of six months, was the limit for you; / you were separated from me, O spirited lady, through Dakṣa's anger.

The seers who were cursed by me in the past on account of your wrath, / they too, O goddess, were born along with you in the Vaivasvata interval:

Bhṛgu, Aṅgiras, Marīci, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, / Atri, and Vasiṣṭha—those eight sons of Brahmā.

They were cursed previously in Dakṣa's sacrifice during the Svāyambhuva interval; / they were born again, O goddess, in this kalpa when the Cākṣuṣa [interval] had passed.

At the sacrifice of the Great God, who was bearing a Vāruṇī body, / as Brahmā previously poured semen into the fire desiring offspring,

the seers were born formerly, possessing radiance equal to the sun's orb. / They were sent by me in the past to your father to ask for your hand, my dear; / you know the truth of that, O lady of noble vows.

Now, what is the use of speaking much? I will answer your excellent question. / In this present second half of the life of Vedhas,

beginning from the Śvetakalpa down to the range of the Vārāha, / listen, O fair-faced lady, to those moons that have passed away:

Four hundred and twenty-six cool-rayed ones have passed away, / O ruler of the gods; the twenty-seventh is now [present], my dear,

which exists right now when the Vaivasvata interval has arrived. / In the tenth Tretāyuga, accompanied by Dattātreya,

the lord of Rohiṇī was born, who exists right now, my dear. / In connection with his origin, [I shall speak of] the human incarnations of Viṣṇu.

I will tell of his bodily descents from the very beginning, my beloved. / The fifth occurred in the fifteenth Tretāyuga:

Māndhātṛ, who held universal empire, preceded by Utathya. / In the nineteenth Tretāyuga, the destroyer of all kṣatriyas arose—

the descendant of Jamadagni, the sixth, preceded by Viśvāmitra. / In the twenty-fourth age, Rāma [arose], with Vasiṣṭha as his priest;

the seventh, born as the son of Daśaratha for the destruction of Rāvaṇa. / In the twenty-eighth Dvāpara, Viṣṇu was born as the eighth from Parāśara;

then was born Vedavyāsa, preceded by Jātūkarṇya. / There too Viṣṇu was born as the ninth, son of Kaśyapa from Aditi,

from Vasudeva upon Devakī, preceded by the divine Garga. / In this twenty-first Dvāpara, at the end of its fraction, / when dharma was destroyed, then Viṣṇu himself was born in the Vṛṣṇi lineage

to establish the system of dharma, destroyer of the asuras. / In a previous birth, that heroic Viṣṇu was named Pramati;

by lineage of Candramas, he will appear at the junction of the ages— / Kalki, known as Viṣṇuyaśas, mighty like the son of Parāśara,

the tenth, who is to come, preceded by Yājñavalkya. / Leading an army crowded with elephants, horses, and chariots,

with brahmins wielding weapons by hundreds of thousands, / he will then completely destroy those Śūdra kings,

and heretics, mleccha tribes, and bandits by thousands, / and those who are not particularly righteous, and wherever there are haters of the Veda and brahmins.

His discus set in motion, powerful, a terminator of the valiant, mighty, / invisible to all beings, he will traverse the earth.

As the lord on earth with a portion of the divine Manu, / having destroyed all of them driven by what is destined to occur, / he will attain his end between the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā along with his followers.

Then, when Kalki has departed together with his ministers and army, / and kings have vanished, the subjects will at that time strike one another.

When protection has ceased, they will kill each other in battle; / slaughtered by one another, they will be utterly helpless and deeply wretched.

And when this Kaliyuga is exhausted in ten thousand years, / and its twilight fraction is completely spent, the Kṛtayuga will arrive.

When the moon, the sun, Tiṣya, and Bṛhaspati / all enter into the same zodiacal sign, then the Kṛtayuga will begin.

The lunar mansion was Abhijit, the night was Jayantī, / and the muhūrta was Vijaya when Janārdana was born.

The goddess said: / The entire course of events caused by the curse of Bhṛgu has not been fully related. / Tell me of his former descents that have not been told before, O Maheśvara.

Īśvara said: / When the earth was overrun by very powerful dānavas, / from that time onward, by the curse occasioned by Bhṛgu,

Viṣṇu was born again and again to establish the order of dharma. / From Dharma, Nārāyaṇa was born as a Sādhya in the Cākṣuṣa Manvantara;

and he established the sacrifice in the Vaivasvata Manvantara. / During that manifestation of his, Brahmā was his priest.

In the fourth yuga named, when the gods here had fallen into distress, / he arose from the ocean for the slaying of Hiraṇyakaśipu.

The second was Narasiṃha, who had Rudra as his forerunner. / When the worlds were controlled by Bali in the seventh yuga of the Tretā,

and the three worlds were overrun by the daityas, the third became Vāmana; / shrinking his body in his limbs, he was preceded by Bṛhaspati.

In the tenth Tretāyuga, Dattātreya indeed arose, / when a fourth of dharma was lost, preceded by Mārkaṇḍeya. / These divine descents among humans have been declared formerly.

Thus ends the nineteenth chapter, named 'Description of the Descents of Śrī Viṣṇu', in the first section on the Māhātmya of Prabhāsakṣetra, in the seventh Prabhāsakhaṇḍa of the glorious Skandapurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand verses.