Skandapurana 17.7

The king said: / How were you born in human form from the body of a doe? / By whom were you raised in childhood, and how did you come to have such a form?

The doe-faced woman said: / Listen, O king, I will tell what took place in the Kanyaka forest. / There was a seer named Uddālaka on the bank of the Gaṅgā, of great austerity.

At dawn he went into the forest, O king, to pass urine. / At the end of urinating, a drop of the twice-born's semen fell upon the ground.

As soon as that brahmin walked away, having carefully performed his purification, / a doe arrived, having seen it from within a grove of flowers.

Out of fickleness she consumed the semen, and was seen by the brahmin seer himself. / [He thought:] 'Because she consumes my semen, therefore conception will occur.

In her womb will be a woman with my form and your face. / The goddesses will nurture that daughter of yours with heavenly juices.

By some divine fate, knowledge will come to her.' / Thus, O king, I was born deer-faced from Uddālaka. / Having entered the fire, I died of old with you, O lord of men.

From that arose my state of being a virtuous wife across seven births, O lord. / As for the sin that was accumulated by you while ruling the kingdom,

having abandoned the duty of a warrior and dying intent on flight, / that very sin was burned by me in the fire of the funeral pyre, O best of kings.

If a woman, embracing her deceased husband, enters the fire, / she delivers her husband, herself, and both families.

One who dies in a cattle-raid, during the overthrow of a kingdom, or facing the enemy in battle / pierces the solar orb and is glorified in the world of Brahmā.

The mortal who undertakes fasting to death gains the merit of a thousand sacrifices day by day; / casting off sins, he goes by a vehicle accompanied by attendants and is worshipped by the gods.

Those who die in the waters of the Gaṅgā, at Prayāga, at Kedāra, or at Puṣkara, / at Vastrāpatha, and at Prabhāsa—they go to heaven.

Those who die in Dvāravatī or Kurukṣetra through the practice of yoga, / or those who have the syllable 'Hari' at death—they go to heaven.

Those who, having worshipped Hari on the ground with kuśa grass and sesame seeds, / and having given sesame seeds, five metals, and a milch cow,

die, O tiger among kings—those men go to heaven. / Having fathered sons and established them in the ancestral station,

those who die pure and stainless go to heaven. / Those devoted to vows and fasts, dedicated to truthful conduct, / intent on non-violence, and peaceful—those men go to heaven.

Because you died under blame, having abandoned the battlefield, O lord of men, / your birth took place in seven wombs together with me.

At my death I prayed: 'May I have no husband other than you.' / Then, O best of kings, a bodiless voice in the sky said: / 'Having first experienced the fruit of your sins, you will afterwards go to heaven.

If someone goes to Vastrāpatha and releases your head / into the water of the Svarṇarekhā, O king, my face will become human.

I am a woman with a human face, but my face is veiled by the shadow of sin / and appears like a deer's face; therefore, have it released quickly.'

Hearing these words, the king looked at the sage belonging to Sarasvatī. / Smiling with joy, that brahmin said, 'All the doe's words are true.

Do thus, O best of kings!' / Thus commanded by the king, the gatekeeper went to the forest.

Hastening to see Bhava at the great sacred ford of Vastrāpatha, / [he went to] the great thicket of bamboo over the water of the Svarṇarekhā,

where that head was impaled on a bamboo in the great forest, / as reported by the skilled disciple of the sage belonging to Sarasvatī.

Having gone to the Vastrāpatha sacred ford, there was the great river in front of Bhava; / there in the thicket the head was seen, and it was released into the water.

Having bathed and worshipped the lord of the sacred ford, the gatekeeper returned / swiftly with the disciple in a chariot possessing the radiance of the sun.

When the gatekeeper arrived, she was instructed by the sage belonging to Sarasvatī / to observe the cāndrāyaṇa vow continuously for one month.

When her vow was completed, she obtained a celestial face with beautiful eyes, / very lovely, with long hair, long ears, and auspicious teeth,

with a conch-like neck, smelling of lotuses, and endowed with all auspicious marks. / At the end of the vow, the maiden fainted and lost consciousness.

Neither goddess, nor gandharva maiden, nor asura maiden, nor kinnara maiden / was such as she became then, beautiful by the nature of the sacred ford.

She was married by that king Bhoja, that lovely woman; / renowned as Mṛgīmukhī, she was like the goddess Bhuvaneśvarī.

She remembered nothing of what had happened before in the royal palace. / She was made the chief queen by the wise king Bhoja.

Īśvara said: / This is the foremost country among countries, the foremost mountain among mountains, / the best sacred field among sacred fields, the best forest among forests.

Gaṅgā, Sarasvatī, and Tāpī abide in the water of the Svarṇarekhā; / Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Sūrya, and all the gods headed by Indra,

nāgas, yakṣas, and gandharvas are established in this sacred field, / by which the cosmic egg, the three worlds with the moving and unmoving, was fashioned.

[and] the gods headed by Brahmā were born—he, Bhava, is situated here. / He is celebrated as Śiva, Bhava, the three-eyed God himself.

And on account of Skanda's babbling words Bhavānī is also established here. / Therefore no sacred ford greater than this has been spoken of by me to you, O goddess.

If a man intent on ritual ablution in that water, having performed the twilight prayers, then performs the water oblation, / offers the śrāddha to the ancestors, gives sacrificial fees, and looks upon Bhava’s origin, he is liberated from worldly existence.

Now, if he performs the worship of Bhava with celestial flowers, and then sings and recites hymns saying 'Śiva, Śiva,' / praised by hosts of the best of gods in aerial chariots, taking the form of the best of gods, Śiva, the mortal goes to heaven.

Thus ends the seventh chapter, named 'Description of the Glory of Svarṇarekhā, preceded by the account of the marriage of King Bhoja after the deer-faced woman obtained a divine face by casting away her deer-face from a past birth in the Svarṇarekhā,' in the Glory of the Vastrāpatha Field, in the second [sub-section], in the Prabhāsa Section, in the Śrī Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.