Skandapurana 16.317

Īśvara said:
Then one should go, O great goddess, to the goddess Kaṇṭakaśoṣiṇī, / situated north of Devakula and south of Unnata.

I shall relate her origin; listen attentively, O beloved. / To the south of Unnata, the best among the twice-born were performing sacrifices:

Bhṛgu, Atri, Marīci, Bharadvāja, and Kaśyapa, / Kaṇva, Maṅki, Sāvarṇi, and likewise Jātūkarṇya,

Vatsa, Vasiṣṭha, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, / Manu, Yama, Aṅgiras, Viṣṇu, Śātātapa, Parāśara,

Śāṇḍilya, Kauśika, Gautama, Gārgya, / Dālbhya, Śaunaka, Śākalya, and Gālava,

Jābāli, Mudgala, Ṛṣyaśṛṅga, Vibhāṇḍaka, / Viśvāmitra, Śatānanda, Jahnu, and Viśvāvasu.

These and other sages were sacrificing with various offerings, / having erected a sacrificial enclosure on the auspicious bank of the Ṛṣitoyā,

resounding with the dances of gods and gandharvas, with flutes and viṇās, / with the echoing sound of Vedic chanting, and with the sounds born of sacrifices, homas, and agnihotras;

entirely enveloped in incenses, fragrant with ghee, and worshipped, / adorned by divine sages, the best of the twice-born learned in the four Vedas.

Seeing such a place, the demons of great strength / emerged from the midst of the ocean to destroy the sacrifice.

Deceitful, huge-bodied, dark in complexion, large-bellied, / with drooping eyebrows, beards, and noses, red-eyed, and red-haired,

all those Daityas arrived at the sacrifice, O fair-faced one! / Seeing them, fearful and of terrible forms,

some [munis] fell to the ground, while others stood holding sacrificial ladles near the fire; / some entered the hall of the wife, and others the storeroom for offerings;

while the officiating priests remained silent in the sacrificial assembly.

When this happened to the high-souled sages, O goddess, / the Adhvaryu priest of great splendour, taking courage and acting with care,

knowing the mantras, arranged the fire offering and the sacrificial food, / and offered oblations into the well-kindled fire to destroy the Rākṣasas.

When the oblation was offered, O ruler of the gods, instantly there arose / a Śakti, equipped with a spear and a trident, holding a shield, intensely blazing.

By her those Daityas, who were destroying the sacrifice, were slain. / Then the sages praised her with various hymns.

Greatly pleased, the goddess spoke to those seers: / “Choose a boon, O sages; I shall grant an excellent boon.”

The seers said: / “All our purpose has indeed been achieved; our sacrifices have been protected by you. / If a boon is to be given to us by you, O crusher of Asuras,

remain always in this place out of desire for the welfare of the sages. / The Daityas, who were thorns, have been withered; hence let your name / always be Kaṇṭakaśoṣiṇī (‘Withering the Thorns’) here from this day forward, O goddess.”

Īśvara said: / Having said, “So it shall be,” the goddess vanished then. / If a man worships me on the eighth or ninth lunar day,

no fear arises for him from Rākṣasas or Piśācas. / That man would attain supreme perfection; of this there is no doubt.

Thus ends the three hundred and seventeenth chapter, entitled ‘Description of the Māhātmya of Kaṇṭakaśoṣaṇī’, in the first [part], the Prabhāsakṣetramāhātmya, of the seventh section, the Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.