Skandapurana 2.8.5

Vyāsa said:

O venerable one, tell [me] in truth: why did the sage Viśvāmitra

angrily, out of persistence, toward his disciple Kautsa,

then earnestly demand such a great, difficult-to-obtain sum of wealth?

Tell all of this, if you have compassion for me.

Agastya said:

Listen to this story yourself, O brahmin, with your senses attentive.

Viśvāmitra, the best of sages, whose eye was divine knowledge,

performed arduous austerity in his hermitage, self-controlled and keeping his vows.

Once, the sage Durvāsas arrived there to see him.

Having arrived and being overcome with hunger, that brahmin loudly said:

"Give food to me, whose mind is distressed by hunger;

pure and hot rice pudding, quickly, for one afflicted by hunger, O brahmin!"

Hearing these words, Viśvāmitra promptly, with great effort,

took the rice pudding in a pot and offered it to him in person.

Seeing him standing ready with it in hand, Durvāsas, looking at him,

spoke sweet words to the sage, intent on testing him:

"Endure for a moment, O best of brahmins, while I go to bathe.

Wait, wait! Wait for a moment; I am coming right away."

Having said this, Durvāsas went to his own hermitage at that time.

Viśvāmitra, intent on his austerity, then [stood] like a mountain peak, unmoving;

he stood then for a thousand divine years with a steady mind.

The sage Kautsa, dedicated to serving him, firm in his vows,

was exceedingly noble in mind and free from envy.

That sage Durvāsas, free from fault, returned once again,

and having immediately consumed the rice pudding, he departed for his own hermitage.

When that best of sages had gone, Viśvāmitra, a treasury of austerities,

dismissed Kautsa, the best of the learned, to return home.

He, having been dismissed, said to the guru: "Please ask for a fee (dakṣiṇā)."

Viśvāmitra said to him: "What dakṣiṇā will you give?

Your service was the dakṣiṇā. Go home, O you of restrained vows!"

When the disciple persisted, addressing his guru again and again,

then the guru, exceedingly angry, spoke harshly to his disciple:

"Bring fourteen—bring fourteen

crores of gold as my dakṣiṇā, O brahmin; then go home!"

Having been spoken to thus by the guru, Kautsa reflected and approached

the descendant of Kakutstha, the conqueror of the directions, and begged for the guru's fee.

This has been told to you, O best of sages, since it was indeed asked by you.

Hear another from me; I shall tell you the excellent origin of the sacred ford.

To the southern quarter from there lies the confluence frequented by the perfected,

renowned on earth from the joining of the Tilodakī and the Sarayū.

Having bathed there, O fortunate one, men become free from passion.

Whatever fruit there may be from the performance of ten horse-sacrifices,

that the righteous person obtains who bathes there, firm in vows.

And whoever gives gold and other gifts to a brahmin who has mastered the Vedas,

attains an auspicious state and shines like fire.

At the confluence of the Tilodakī and Sarayū, famed in the world,

having given food according to rule, he is not born again.

And the man who, having fasted, satisfies the brahmins,

that mortal obtains the fruit of the Sautrāmaṇī sacrifice.

Moreover, he who remains there taking one meal a day for a month, restrained in vows,

his sin committed throughout life is destroyed at once.

On the new-moon day of the dark fortnight of Bhādrapada, there is the annual pilgrimage.

In ancient times, a river like a second ocean was created by Rāma

for the horses born in the Sindh region to drink water, O one of good vows.

Because its water always shone dark like sesame seeds,

the river of sacred water is always renowned as the Tilodakī.

Even apart from the confluence, in whichever Tilodakī one of pure vows

has bathed, he is released even from sins accumulated across seven births.

Therefore, O sage, bathing in the Tilodakī takes away all sin,

and must be performed with great exertion by living beings desiring righteousness.

Bathing, giving, vows, offering into fire—all attain imperishability.

Thus, having duly undertaken the pilgrimage to sacred fords by various rules in proper order, his manifest virtues blossoming, having acquired merit,

with his devotion offered up to Hari, worshipping every sacred ford, having cast off sin, he somehow reaches the supreme abode.

Thus in the Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the collection of eighty-one thousand verses, in the second Vaiṣṇava section, in the Ayodhyāmāhātmya, the fifth chapter, titled "Description of the Power of the Tilodakī".