Skandapurana 16.273

Īśvara said: / Then one should go, O great goddess, to the unexcelled Śaṇḍatīrtha, / which calms all sins and grants the fruit of all desires.

I shall declare its origin; listen with single-minded focus, O dear one. / Formerly, Brahmā, the grandfather of the worlds, was five-headed.

His head was cut off by me for a certain cause; / there the Gandhavatī arose, and that was from Brahmā's blood.

There great palm trees grew up; therefore it is known as Tālavana; / then the skull of Brahmā clung to the palm of my hand.

The body of mine and also of the bull became black; / then, in dread of the sin, I went to many sacred fords.

Nowhere did the sin depart; then I came to Prabhāsa; / there in the sacred field I saw the goddess Prācī Sarasvatī.

There my bull entered the middle of the water to bathe; / at that moment he attained whiteness, and I too was freed from the killing [of the brahmin].

And the skull clinging to the middle of my hand then fell off; / and it, as Kapālamocana, remained in the form of a liṅga.

Whoever performs a śrāddha there too, in the presence of the goddess Prācī, / on the mother's and the father's side, a hundred generations are gratified,

and their gratification shall last for as long as seventy kalpas. / In the month of Āśvayuja, O goddess, on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight, / whoever gives a śrāddha there, having taken refuge in Dakṣiṇāmūrti,

according to one's wealth and ritual accessories, to a worthy recipient according to the rule, / for as long as a thousand yugas his ancestors shall be gratified.

A gift of food and gold, and curd and a blanket, / is to be given there according to the rule for the purification of all sins.

When the bull of black form attained whiteness, O goddess, / it was therefore renowned as Śaṇḍatīrtha, worshipped in the three worlds.

Thus ends the two hundred and seventy-third chapter, entitled “Description of the Māhātmya of Śaṇḍatīrtha,” in the first [part], the Prabhāsakṣetramāhātmya, in the seventh [section], the Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the Skandapurāṇa containing eighty-one thousand verses.