Skandapurana 2.9.23

Śrī Nārāyaṇa said:

Now, O sage, I will declare to you the rules for the forest hermit.

The third stage of life is prescribed in the third portion of life's span. // 1

If his wife is compliant in his personal service, dispassionate, and fond of austerity,

then he should enter the forest together with her. // 2

Otherwise, assigning her maintenance and protection to his sons and others,

he should enter the forest alone, detached [from the world]. // 3

He should dwell there fearless, taking delight in austerity, free from sloth;

he should make a thatched hut for the sacrificial fire, but dwell outside himself. // 4

He should practice the austerity of five fires in summer, dwell in water in the cold season,

and endure downpours in the rainy season, with anger conquered and senses restrained. // 5

He should wear garments made of grass, leaves, deer-skin, or bark.

He should consume wild grains, or wild roots, fruits, and the like. // 6

He may eat [food] cooked by fire, ripened by the sun, or even raw;

moreover, in the absence of teeth, he [may eat food] pounded with a stone or mortar. // 7

He should personally gather food according to the proper time day by day,

or accept at that time [what is] brought by another, but never at any other time. // 8

Even at the proper time, except in an emergency, he should not accept cultivated food;

and with wild grains alone he should perform his fire rituals as before. // 9

He should keep a water-pot, staff, and the equipment for the daily fire offering;

he should wear his head hair, body hair, beard, and nails, and [keep] his teeth uncleaned. // 2.9.23.10

He should bathe without massaging his limbs, and sleep on the bare ground.

He should practice austerity according to the place, time, strength, and condition. // 11

The Phenapas, the Audumbaras, and likewise the Vālakhilyas,

and the Vaikhānasa—thus forest-dwellers are declared to be of four kinds. // 12

According to his ability, for twelve years, or eight, or four in the forest,

he should dwell, or for two, or even just one; then he should take refuge in renunciation. // 13

If intense dispassion arises, then renunciation brings benefit;

otherwise, the twice-born should live in that very forest for the rest of his life. // 14

Having made renunciation according to rule, established in the fourth stage of life,

he should wear a loincloth with a covering, and a single patched garment. // 15

He should carry a staff, a water-pot, and a water-strainer;

at the proper time he should beg alms in the house of a twice-born of good conduct. // 16

An ascetic should not beg alms every day at the house of the same person;

he must not become greedy for flavors, and should eat moderately, once [a day]. // 17

A mendicant should mostly accept alms from one in the forest-dweller stage of life;

for by that extremely pure food, his mind is certainly purified. // 18

Even upon smelling meat or liquor, he should perform the Pārāka penance;

he should be thoroughly pure in cleanliness and conduct, and must not touch Śūdras and others. // 19

He should constantly worship Viṣṇu and eat what has been offered to Viṣṇu;

he should recite the twelve-syllable or the eight-syllable mantra of Viṣṇu. // 2.9.23.20

He should not engage in fallacious debate, nor narrate stories for the sake of a livelihood;

he should not be attached to bad scriptures, nor pursue a worldly profession. // 21

He should study good scriptures that examine bondage and liberation;

he must not build monasteries and the like; he should abandon egoism and possessiveness. // 22

Except during the four months of the rainy season, he should not dwell in one place when there is no calamity;

and through knowledge he should truly understand the nature of the self and of Hari. // 23

Desire, anger, fear, enmity, and the hoarding of money, grain, and the like—

he must never cultivate; the ascetic should observe the restraints and the observances. // 24

Even an ascetic endowed with intense knowledge and dispassion

will surely fall through contact with women, wealth, ornaments, and fine clothes. // 25

A renunciant should avoid fragrant substances such as flowers, sandalwood, and oils;

otherwise, he will indeed come to identify the self with the body. // 26

According to the amount of food one eats, lust for women enters him to that same degree;

therefore, moderate and flavorless food is beneficial for a renunciant. // 27

Worldly gossip must not be listened to by one desiring attainment of liberation,

from hearing which men's relish for stories of Viṣṇu is instantly destroyed. // 28

A renunciant should neither look at nor touch even a painted woman;

merely from seeing the form of a woman, many ascetics have fallen. // 29

The Kuṭīcaka, the Bahūdaka, the Haṃsa, and the Paramahaṃsa—

thus the ascetic is declared to be of four kinds according to differences in dispassion. // 2.9.23.30

Those ascetics of mine wearing ochre garments who will exist in the future

must perform cooking and other duties for my sake, even while abiding in the fourth stage of life. // 31

For those devotees of glorious Vāsudeva who possess intense dispassion,

their duty is declared to be his service by day and by night. // 32

For those who are abundant in knowledge and discernment, not even a single moment

should pass in vain without the ninefold devotion to Viṣṇu. // 33

Even if endowed with all virtues, if one is averse to the Lord,

even if he is a relative, Vaiṣṇavas should certainly abandon him. // 34

Food that has been offered to Hari and sprinkled with the water from his feet,

mixed with tulasī, the Sātvata people should consume every day. // 35

Association with women and with those attached to women

must be completely avoided by those who contemplate Viṣṇu; otherwise, meditation will be [on them]. // 36

Except for the Lord Vāsudeva alone, there is no other man

at all who does not become infatuated upon seeing a woman. // 37

A renunciant should never dwell where, by staying, hearing the voice

and seeing women occurs repeatedly; by dwelling there, he would fall from his duty. // 38

Lust, greed, enjoyment of tastes, affection, pride, and anger—

these six faults that bring transmigration should be abandoned with effort. // 39

Whosoever experiences a lapse from these prescribed duties,

his expiation must be performed according to his capacity and according to scripture. // 2.9.23.40

Thus, O Nārada, for the four classes and stages of life,

and for the Vaiṣṇavas, the duties have been declared in brief by me to you. // 41

The celibate student and the ascetic who abide in duty certainly go to the world of Brahmā.

The forest-dweller reaches the world of the seers, and the householder attains heaven.

Those people, however, who practice these [duties] with devotion to glorious Viṣṇu,

all of them indeed, at the end of the body, reach the world of Viṣṇu.

Thus ends the twenty-third chapter, named 'Description of the Duties of Forest-dwellers and Renunciants,' in the glorious Vāsudevamāhātmya of the second [section], the Vaiṣṇavakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.