Skandapurana 17.12

Sārasvata said: / Gaṅgā water, honey, ghee, saffron, agallochum, sandalwood, / bdellium, bilva leaves, and bakula flowers—whoever carries these; 1

walking on foot, pure in body, placing the load upon his shoulder, / having bathed at the sacred ford, and having seen Śiva, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, and dear Śaṃkara; 2

whoever offers [these] is released from all bonds; / that man attains the status of an attendant until the dissolution of all beings. 3

Whether accompanied by wife, friends, sons, brothers, kinsmen, / or along with other men, he goes to the sacred ford meditating on the Lord; 4

having fashioned an auspicious divine image, placed upon a chariot and well consecrated, / worshipped with sandalwood, agallochum, camphor, and saffron; 5

worshipping [it] with various flowers, incense, lamps, and the like, O king, / with singing, dancing, instruments, and varied playful dances; 6

if a man goes giving land, gold, cows, water, food, garments, / grass, firewood, and kind words; 7

taken by the hand by divine maidens, reaching the Nandana grove, / he enjoys auspicious pleasures as long as the moon and stars endure. 8

If a man wandering in a sacred ford gives up his life through diseases, / even without seeing the deity at the sacred ford, he obtains the fruit of having seen the sacred ford.

Having reflected upon the various defects of saṃsāra, freed from attachment even toward wife, sons, and friends, / and knowing the soul to be bound by the primary elements, he turns his very body into all the sacred fords.

Having burned away the sins accumulated throughout this birth and other births, O king of men, / he beholds the luminous, all-pervading, ancient source of existence, and is liberated.

At a sacred ford, the word of a brahmin should be received; having bathed, performing twilight worship and the like, / with darbha grass, sesame seeds, sacrificial grain, and rites performed with faith;

with Agastya and Bhṛṅgarāja [flowers], the auspicious hundred-petaled lotus, / camphor, agallochum, sandalwood, saffron, and a tulasī leaf;

with rice balls the size of bilva fruits upon grounds illuminated by lamps, / with betel, fruit-offerings, and water with sesame and darbha grass.

Whatever is dedicated by mortals at a sacred ford becomes endless: / at the solstices, the equinoxes, the solar transitions, and during eclipses;

at the end of the month, during the dark fortnight, on the death anniversary of father or mother, / during the elephant's shadow, on the thirteenth day, or when wealth is obtained, O best of the twice-born.

One should perform a śrāddha at home for release from the debt to the ancestors; / [the merit is] a hundred times greater than at home at a river that flows to the ocean.

At Prabhāsa, at Puṣkara, O king, at the Gaṅgā, at Piṇḍatāraka, / at Prayāga, O king, at the Gomatī, before Bhava and Dāmodara;

if a man should perform a śrāddha at the sacred fords such as the Narmadā, / he is fully freed from all sins, and his ancestors attain the good realm.

Having obtained excellent progeny and enjoyed unsurpassed pleasures, / he ascends a divine aerial chariot and at the end goes to the abode of the gods.

In rites such as the birth ceremonies, at marriages, during sacrifices, / and at the commencement of the consecration of a deity, one should perform a vṛddhiśrāddha.

All the deities are satisfied, and the ancestors of men are satisfied; / all auspiciousness arises in the house of one who performs a vṛddhiśrāddha.

Desire, anger, greed, delusion, intoxication from liquor and other causes, / deceit, envy, slander, lack of discernment, overthinking,

arrogance, self-will, fickleness, longing, O king, / excessive exertion, total indolence, negligence, treachery, recklessness,

laziness, procrastination, consorting with another's wife, / eating too little, total fasting, grief, theft, O best of kings—

if one lives at home continually avoiding these defects, / that man is an ornament to the earth, to the country, and to the city.

He is fortunate, learned, of noble birth, he alone is the best of men; / the ablution of all the sacred fords is daily accomplished for him.

Then the fruit of the sacred ford is fully realized for one who has abandoned defects; / bathing, twilight prayers, silent recitation, fire offerings, libations to ancestors, gods, and seers, / śrāddha, and worship of the deity are fruitful for one who has abandoned defects.

Whether at Prayāga, or at Kurukṣetra, and at the Sarasvatī, or at the ocean, / or at Gayā, at Rudrapada, or at the hermitage of Nara and Nārāyaṇa,

at Prabhāsa, at Puṣkara, at Kṛṣṇā, at the Gomatī, at Piṇḍatāraka, / in Vastrāpatha on the holy mountain, and likewise at Dāmodara, O king,

at Bhīmeśvara, on the Narmadā, at Skānda, at Rāmeśvara and others, / in Ujjayinī at Mahākāla, and at Vārāṇasī, [which encompass] the earth and atmosphere,

at the Kālindī and at Mathurā, if a man goes even once, / [though] tainted with fault, he is freed from faults committed, such as the killing of a brahmin.

Even a worm, a moth, a bird, or a hog, / donkeys, camels, elephants, horses, deer, lions, reptiles,

those who die in these places knowingly or unknowingly, O king, / all of them are performers of meritorious deeds; having enjoyed great happiness in heaven,

all of them are born among the four castes by virtue of their karmic bond; / leaving behind the bond of karma, those men quickly attain liberation again.

They rejoice on account of death at a sacred ford, after the enjoyment of heaven has ended, / having reached the land of action, the great fortune, in the continent of Bhārata.

Endowed with many wonders, adorned with many mountains, / where all the rivers of the Gaṅgā unite with the oceans,

at every step there are treasures, countless sacred fords, / by the mere remembrance of which the destruction of all sins occurs.

Many are the paths to Pātāla, and the path to heaven is seen; / in the sky the sun is seen, in the heart Hara is seen.

Through meditation, the yoga of knowledge, austerity, the words of the guru, / through truth, and through sheer courage, the three worlds are perceived.

Those who do not see the surface of the earth, / Pātāla, and the heavenly world through the Vedas, the Smṛtis, and the Purāṇas, are deceived men in this world.

Those who do not turn away from women, attached to desire, devoid of reason— / the body of beautiful women is one thing, and it was conceived differently by them.

Those creatures, attached to their birthplaces, are born again; / fallen again from the path of liberation, they are born into animal wombs.

Those who, having acquired wealth, do not offer even a cowrie to the foremost of the twice-born after performing worship, / those vile men of tainted thought, struck by fate, are as good as dead.

Those men who, having obtained a well-nourished body and youth free from old age, do not go to the Gaṅgā and other [places]— / there is no mother, no father, no son, no kinsman, no wife, no sister, no daughter [who goes with them].

How can one who goes alone not suffer? The fool does not know Bhava, the great Lord. / Having bathed, they do not behold Hara, the great Lord; those vile men are indeed robbed by fate.

Thus ends the twelfth chapter, entitled 'Description of the Rules of Pilgrimage', in the Glorification of the Sacred Field of Vastrāpatha, in the second [sub-section] of the seventh [part], the Prabhāsakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.