Skandapurana 16.9

The Goddess said:
I bow to the divine splendor which I beheld in ancient times,
standing in the midst of Kālāgnirudra, originating from Śaṃkara, at Prabhāsa.

He who is worshiped by the hosts of the Vedas, by the seers, by the Purāṇas, and by the yogas taught in the Vedas—
in that God of gods, Someśvara, the cause of the destruction of sins, I take refuge.

O God of gods, Lord of the universe, Bestower of grace upon your devotees!
A doubt has arisen in my heart; be pleased to dispel it.

Īśvara said:
What doubt has arisen in you, O glorious Goddess?
Tell me that, O auspicious lady; I shall explain it all to you.

The Goddess said:
If you are indeed Mahādeva, why have you made a garland of skulls,
[you who are] the creator without beginning or end, the cause of creation and dissolution?

Then the Lord of gods, Śaṃkara, smiled and spoke these words:
This garland that adorns me with many crores of skulls,

was made from the skulls of thousands of Nārāyaṇas and tens of thousands of Brahmās;
hence it is without beginning or end.

In every aeon another Viṣṇu appears, and another Brahmā appears as well;
in aeon after aeon, Viṣṇu and Prajāpati are created by me.

Such as I am, O Goddess, I abide in the sacred field of Prabhāsa,
at the root of the Kālāgni-liṅga, adorned with a garland of skulls.

Holding a rosary, tranquil, devoid of beginning, middle, or end,
seated on a lotus seat, granting boons, resembling snow, the kunda flower, or the moon.

On my left stands Viṣṇu, and on my right stands the Grandfather [Brahmā];
in my belly are the four Vedas, and in my heart is the eternal Brahman.

Fire, the moon, and the sun are situated in my eyes.

Abiding thus at Prabhāsa, O Great Goddess,
brought forth from the water-principle—let there be no doubt in you anywhere!

Having been spoken to thus, the Goddess, with a voice choked with joy
and filled with supreme devotion, then praised the Lord of the gods of gods.

The Goddess said:
Victory, O God, Mahādeva, Source of all beings, Īśvara!
Obeisance to you, Lord of the gods; obeisance indeed to the Supreme Lord!

Obeisance to the author of beginningless creation, and obeisance to the all-pervading one!
Obeisance to you who dwell in everything; obeisance to you, the Light of lights!

Obeisance to you who end at the six [centers], obeisance to you who end at the twelve [centers];
obeisance to you who are the distinctions of the haṃsa; obeisance to you, bestower of liberation!

Having been praised thus by the Goddess, the Lord who wears the trembling crescent moon
was pleased and spoke these words:

Īśvara said:
Well done, well done, O highly wise lady! I am pleased; choose a boon.

The Goddess said:
If you are pleased, O Lord of gods, or if I am worthy of a boon,
tell me again in detail the greatness of the sacred field of Prabhāsa.

O Lord of beings, why did the blessed Viṣṇu, the foremost destroyer of the Daityas,
abandon Dvārakā and resort to the sacred field of Prabhāsa?

There are sixty thousand sacred fords and sixty thousand crores
situated within Dvārakā; how did Hari cast them aside?

Having thus abandoned that Dvārakā, surrounded by immortals, holy, and served by the performers of meritorious deeds,
how did he come to Prabhāsa?

Hari, the leader of gods and men, the source of heaven and earth—
why did he leave Dvārakā and meet his end at Prabhāsa?

How did he, the foremost among wielders of the discus,
who alone sets in motion the mental wheel of men, meet his end at Prabhāsa?

How did the blessed Lord Viṣṇu, who provides protection
for the entire universe, resort to the sacred field of Prabhāsa?

He who at the time of the cosmic dissolution, drinking up the water and assuming a watery body,
turned the world into a single ocean by his gaze and by his visible self—

How did he meet death at Prabhāsa, O Lord of Pārvatī?
He who, the ancient Self in the ancient past, assumed the form of a boar

and lifted up the entire earth with its mountains, forests, and groves—
how did he cast off his body at sin-destroying Prabhāsa?

He who, having assumed a lion's form, slew Hiraṇyakaśipu—
how did that God of the gods of gods take refuge in the sacred field of Prabhāsa?

The God with a thousand feet, a thousand eyes, of great splendor,
with a thousand heads, of whom the Vedas speak in aeon after aeon—

how did that God abandon his body at Prabhāsa?
He in the forest of whose navel the abode of the Grandfather arose;

when the world had turned into a single ocean, that lotus which was freed from mud,
which was lifted up by him in an instant—how did that Hari come to abide at Prabhāsa?

He, the slayer of enemy heroes, who slumbers on the northern part of the ocean,
the ocean of milk, the ocean of nectar, taking resort to eternal yoga—
how did that Supreme Lord abandon his body at Prabhāsa?

He who made the gods consumers of oblations, and the ancestors consumers of ancestral offerings—
how did that God of the gods of gods resort to the sacred field of Prabhāsa?

He who, assuming a form appropriate for each aeon for the welfare of the world,
upholds dharma—how did that God resort to this sacred field?

The three castes, the three worlds, the three Vedas, the three reciters,
the three times, the three actions, the three gods, and the three guṇas—
by whom these were created of old: how did that God resort to this sacred field?

He who is the destination of those endowed with dharma, and the absence of a goal for evil-doers,
the source of the four castes and the protector of the four castes,

the knower of the four Vedas, the one established in the four stages of life—
why did he leave Dvārakā and meet his death at Prabhāsa?

The directions, the sky, the earth, the waters, the wind, the fire,
the two luminaries, the moon and the sun, the Lord of aeons, whose body is the night;

he who is heard of as the supreme light, who is heard of as the supreme austerity,
who is proclaimed higher than the highest, who possesses the supreme Self—

He who is the divine origin of the Ādityas, the all-pervading destroyer of the Daityas— / how did that son of Devakī attain siddhi in Prabhāsa?

He who is the destroyer at the end of the yuga, and the destroyer of the destroyer of the worlds, / who is the bridge for the existence of the worlds, and the pure one among those of pure deeds,

who is the knower among the knowers of the Veda, the lord among those whose nature is sovereignty, / who has become the moon among beings, and the fire among those whose path is fire,

who has become the mind among human beings, and the austerity among the austere, / the humility among those endowed with policy, and the splendor even among the splendid,

who is the embodied form among bodies, and the goal even among those who move— / how did he, abandoning Dvārakā, take refuge in Prabhāsakṣetra?

Wind arises from the ether, and the consumer of oblations has wind as his life-breath; / the gods have the consumer of oblations as their life-breath, and Madhusūdana is the life-breath of fire; / how did he, the life-breath of the lotus-born, take refuge in Prabhāsakṣetra?

Sūta said: / Thus addressed at that time by the goddess, Śaṃkara, who brings welfare to the world, / laughed and addressed words to Pārvatī, O best of the twice-born:

Īśvara said: / Listen, O goddess, I will explain the extent of Prabhāsakṣetra, / a secret that destroys all sins, hard to attain even for the gods.

O goddess, O radiant one, there are many sacred fields on the earth, / and sacred fords by the crores, having power in [measurable] number;

but Prabhāsa is indeed celebrated as having immeasurable power. / The reality of Brahmā, the reality of Viṣṇu, and likewise the reality of Rudra—

their combination is further found there, hard to find elsewhere, O Pārvatī. / In Prabhāsa, O ruler of the gods, the triad of principles is present.

Along with the twenty-four principles, Brahmā, the grandfather of the worlds, / having the form of a child and by that name, dwells in that place himself.

The overlord of the twenty-five principles, the foremost among the deities, / the destroyer of the Daityas, is directly present in that place, O auspicious one.

I, O goddess, together with you and united with the thirty-six principles, / dwell in Prabhāsa which destroys sins, O highly fortunate one.

Know Prabhāsa alone to be such an auspicious sacred field consisting of all principles and all sacred fords; / do not entertain doubt anywhere.

Even worms, insects, or men who die there, / they too attain the supreme state; there should be no deliberation on this.

Women, barbarians, Śūdras, beasts, birds, and wild animals— / dying in Prabhāsa, O goddess, they go to the world of Śiva.

Those who are bound by desire and anger, enslaved by greed, / overcome by the darkness of ignorance, and abiding in the principle of illusion,

those bound by the noose of Time, bewildered by the net of craving, / those devoted to unrighteousness, and whatever sinners remain,

slayers of brahmins, ungrateful people, and others who violate the teacher’s bed, / even perpetrators of the greatest sins—they attain the supreme goal.

A person who is a slayer of his mother, and likewise a slayer of his father— / they all attain liberation, not to mention those who perform good deeds!

Knowing this, O great goddess, Hari, the destroyer of the Daityas, / reached Prabhāsakṣetra and abandoned his own mortal body. / Thus in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the Samhitā of eighty-one thousand [verses], in the seventh Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the first Prabhāsakṣetramāhātmya, the ninth chapter entitled ‘Description of the Question concerning the Abode of Śrī Hari in Prabhāsakṣetra’.