Skandapurana 2.2.43

Jaimini said:

In the month of Phālguna, one should perform the supreme swing festival,

Where Govinda sports indeed for the sake of bestowing grace upon the world.

One should make a secondary image of the God of Gods named Govinda;

In front of the temple, one should make an elevated sixteen-pillared

Square pavilion with four doors, furnished with an altar platform,

With a beautiful canopy, adorned with garlands, chowries, and banners,

And an auspicious seat upon the altar platform, made of śrīparṇī wood.

One should celebrate the Phalgūtsava for five days or three days.

Prior to the full moon day of Phālguna, O brahmins, on the fourteenth day at nightfall,

One should celebrate the fire festival to the east of the swing pavilion.

That is proclaimed as a constituent rite of the pilgrimage favoured by Govinda.

Having chosen the preceptor, with fire produced from friction,

Having prepared the ground according to the prescribed rules, [he should gather] a very high heap of straw;

and having made it completely level, he should place the fire therein.

Having worshipped according to the rite, he should offer oblations with the Kūṣmāṇḍa rites;

and having worshipped Govinda, he should circumambulate that all-pervading Lord.

He should diligently protect that fire as long as the festival lasts.

In the morning watch on the fourteenth lunar day, [taking] the auspicious image of Govinda,

and seating it before Hari, he should worship Puruṣottama.

With the remaining offerings of worship, he should also worship the secondary image.

Then, having taken down the garment and garland, O best of brahmins,

the master of mantras, contemplating the supreme light, should deposit [it] into the image.

Then that image directly becomes Puruṣottama [himself].

He should convey it indeed to the pavilion for bathing on a palanquin of jewels,

amidst various sounds of musical instruments preceded by the sounding of conches,

with shouts of victory, as well as hymns of praise, and showers of flowers,

with umbrellas, flags, banners, chowries, and fans,

and with continuous lamps, he should then conduct a great festival.

At that time, the gods, headed by Brahmā,

come along with the hosts of seers to witness the great festival of Govinda.

Having established [the deity] upon an auspicious seat, he should worship [him] with articles of homage;

he should perform his ceremonial bath according to the rule of the great bath,

with all the five nectars, or with any one of them.

At the conclusion of the bath, he should consecrate [him] with fragrant water according to the Śrīsūkta.

Having sprinkled the god, he should adorn him with garments, ornaments, and garlands;

having waved lights before him and worshipped him, he should carry him around the temple.

Seven times then he should lead the god to the swing-pavilion,

along the highway well-adorned with banners, ornamental arches, and the like;

in the lower area he should move that pavilion around seven times;

in the upper area seven times, and on the pillared altar indeed seven times;

and at the end of the festival he should move it around twenty-one times.

This pastime of the Blessed Lord, declared from the mouth of Brahmā,

was performed long ago indeed by the royal sage Indradyumna.

In a delightful spot in Vṛndāvana, arranged with trees

bowing down with fruits and flowers, buzzing with impassioned black bees,

sweet with the cooing of cuckoos, crowded with diverse flocks of birds,

fashioned with manifold adornments, perfumed with various aloes,

its quarters scented with the fragrance of clumps of blooming screw-pine,

adorned with jasmine, aśoka, punnāga, and campaka trees;

in the pavilion erected inside that forest, having attractive ornamental arches,

decorated with garlands and garments, beautified with chowries;

upon a swing-bed of jewels, in the midst of it, he should seat the Lord,

wearing a diadem of fine gems, his chest adorned with a necklace of pearls,

his ears illuminated by earrings fashioned of priceless gems,

charming with divine ornaments properly placed and appropriately radiant,

seated in the centre of a blooming lotus, accompanied by Śrī, the bearer of the universe,

bearing the conch, discus, mace, and lotus, wearing a forest garland,

very gracious, of handsome nose, radiant with a broad chest,

praised with shouts of victory, with hands folded in devotion,

with bowed heads, by the gods headed by Brahmā standing in the sky before him,

by gandharvas, apsarases, kinnaras, siddhas, and cāraṇas,

by Hāhā, Hūhū, and other divine singers, swiftly

performing dances, songs, and instrumental music, vying with each other,

and worshipped with delight by thousands of lotus-eyes,

who scatter in all directions the powder born of fragrant sandalwood.

Having thus seated Govinda, he should worship him with articles of homage,

meditating on the Lord of the world stationed in the midst of a troop of cowherd women, at the foot of a kadamba tree,

sporting with gestures, laughter, and amorous dalliance in the forest,

mounted upon a vehicle swung in playful sport by the gopīs and cowherds;

and he should scatter fragrant powders,

with camphor, red, yellow, and white, all around in every direction,

along with divine garments, divine garlands, divine fragrances, and fine incenses.

worshipped with the waving of chowries, songs, and hymns of praise.

One should gently swing [the deity] seated on the swing seven times.

Those who see Kṛṣṇa at that moment attain liberation; of this there is no doubt.

The destruction of the group of five sins, beginning with the murder of a brahmin, shall take place.

Thus one should swing the God three times, he who removes all sins,

who shows grace to men through devotion, the sole cause of worldly enjoyment and liberation,

whose sportive activities, both artificial and natural,

destroy the multitude of sins and dispel primal ignorance.

Seeing him a second time destroys minor sins such as cow-slaughter;

at the third time, it destroys all sins without remainder; of this there is no doubt.

Having seen the God swinging, one is freed from all sins;

one is released from [sufferings] that are spiritual, material, and supernatural.

Having caused this festival to be performed, a king becomes a universal emperor;

a brahmin certainly becomes a master of the four Vedas and endowed with wisdom.

Thus ends the forty-third chapter, named 'Mounting the Swing', in the Puruṣottamakṣetra-māhātmya in the second Vaiṣṇava section of the venerable Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].