Skandapurana 2.9.29

Śrī Nārāyaṇa said:

Having worshiped him mentally with diverse kinds of offerings,

the devotee should invoke him and establish him in the image with the mudrā of establishment. // 1

Then, having invoked the deities of his limbs severally with their respective mantras,

or with the mantras of their names, he should firmly establish them. // 2

He should play instruments such as the bell, or clap hands.

Then he should have him cleanse his teeth as if he had just awakened from sleep. // 3

With water mixed with śyāmāka grain, viṣṇukāntā flowers, dūrvā grass, and lotuses,

he should offer this foot-water to the Lord; then [he should offer] water for the guest-offering and sipping water. // 4

Sandalwood, unbroken rice, flowers, tips of darbha grass, sesame seeds, mustard seeds,

barley, and dūrvā grass he should put into the arghya vessel filled with water. // 5

Scented with nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, kaṅkola, and uśīra root,

he should offer water for sipping; then he should bathe Hari. // 6

First he should perform anointing with fragrant floral oil;

then he should perform unction with a paste of aromatic substances. // 7

With milk, curd, clarified butter, honey, and likewise sugar,

undistracted, he should bathe Hari severally with their respective mantras. // 8

Having caused him to bathe with fragrant, pure, and warm water,

he should briefly worship him on the bath pedestal with scents and other offerings. // 9

Then, having cast aside the used flowers and other offerings toward the north, the twice-born

should perform the ceremonial bath either with the Sāman hymns beginning with Rājana, or with the lore of the Great Puruṣa,

or with the Śrīsūkta and the Viṣṇusūkta. // 2.9.29.10

Initiated women and śūdras, however,

should perform the ceremonial bath with the thousand names or with the one hundred and eight names of Hari. // 11

Then, having wiped him with a cloth, he should dress him in priceless garments

with great love, and also Rādhā and the others according to his capacity. // 12

He should give a fine, white, auspicious sacred thread to the Lord,

and put ornaments of gems, gold, and other materials on him together with his limbs. // 13

According to the season, on the proper places, and as appropriate with sandalwood paste,

he should make forehead marks and body anointing with saffron, camphor, and other substances. // 14

And having adorned Rādhikā with appropriate ornaments,

he should apply decorative leafy drawings and a tilaka mark with kumkuma and unbroken rice. // 15

Then, having shown him a mirror, [and having adorned him] with flower garlands, crest ornaments, and the like,

he should worship him with a thousand tulasī shoots and leaves; // 16

or, reciting each Vaiṣṇava name ending in the dative with 'namaḥ',

he should worship the Lord with a tulasī leaf or a flower. // 17

Then, having offered fragrant powders of aromatic substances and auspicious articles,

he should offer ten-ingredient incense or nectar-scented incense and the like. // 18

He should offer a lamp made with ghee and lit with two wicks.

He should present a great food offering, pure and prepared according to his capacity: // 19

saṃyāva cakes, milk rice, apūpa cakes, śaṣkulī pastries, sugar candy, laddu sweets,

crisp pūrikā cakes, polikā flatbreads, cooked rice with mung beans, and cooked vegetables,

and curds, milk, ghee, and other items, placed upon a four-legged stand. // 2.9.29.20

He should then feed him with love, offering drinking water midway.

When half a muhūrta has elapsed, he should offer water for washing the hands. // 21

Having assigned the Lord's leftover food to deities such as Viṣvaksena,

he should set it aside elsewhere for himself and wipe that ground. // 22

Then he should offer a mouth-perfume, a prepared betel roll

combined with areca-nut powder, cloves, cardamom, mace, and nutmeg. // 23

And having offered fruits such as coconuts, and a priestly fee according to his capacity,

One should perform the great waving of lamps preceded by songs and instrumental music.

Offering double handfuls of flowers, one should then praise Him with His own hymn;

singing and dancing before Him, one should perform the chanting of His names.

Having done this for a muhūrta and having circumambulated [the deity],

one should make a prostration like a rod on the ground to His right, horizontally.

A man should perform either an eight-limbed or a five-limbed prostration;

a woman, however, [should perform] only a five-limbed one, never otherwise, O best of sages!

With feet, hands, knees, chest, head, eyes,

speech, and mind—thus the eight-limbed prostration is declared.

With both arms, mind, head, speech, and eyes—

this is the five-limbed prostration; these two are preeminent in rituals of worship.

‘O Lord, protect me, frightened of worldly existence, who have taken refuge in You!’

Having prayed thus, one should perform daily recitation of sacred texts according to one's capacity.

Having meditated and respectfully placed upon one’s head the remnant given by Him,

one should establish Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, invoked as previously, in the lotus of the heart,

and dismiss the attendant deities to their respective places.

Having laid Hari's image to rest in a basket, on a bed, or in the shrine,

and having closed the door, one should perform the Vaiśvadeva sacrifice.

Distributing the food offered to Hari among those dependent upon him,

and having eaten himself, he should spend the rest of the day with discourses about Him and the like.

Whoever worships Viṣṇu every day with devotion according to this prescribed method of great worship

becomes His attendant.

Ascending a celestial aerial chariot, radiant and desired even by the gods,

the worshipper, having a celestial body, goes to the abode of Hari known as Goloka.

Even he who worships Him day after day with an aim for results

also attains righteousness, desire, wealth, and desired liberation.

Unable to perform the rite of worship in this manner,

one should worship Hari alone, together with Rādhā, with devotion by means of whatever articles of worship are obtained.

A twice-born should worship Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa with the twelve-syllable mantra, another with a name-mantra;

devotion alone grants success in this regard.

Especially on the eleventh day of the fortnight, on the festival of Hari’s birth, and on other occasions,

the great worship alone must be performed by all Vaiṣṇavas according to their capacity.

Whoever performs even mere consecration in a temple built by another,

his sins destroyed, truly attains universal sovereignty.

And a wealthy man who has a beautiful, sturdy temple made for Hari

attains undisputed sovereignty even over the three worlds.

He who perpetuates the continuous flow of worship through the grant of a livelihood—

that man certainly attains great happiness in the world of Viṣṇu.

Whoever causes all three to be made here—consecration, a temple, and worship—

certainly attains lordship equal to that of Vāsudeva.

Whoever confiscates a livelihood dedicated to Hari, whether granted by himself or by another,

truly suffers the torments of Yama in hell for an entire kalpa.

The doer, the one who causes it to be done, the helper, and the one who approves—

the share in the fruit of a good deed as well as of the other belongs indeed to these four.

Thus the rule of the yoga of action has been expounded by me, O Nārada,

by which single-minded duty may be accomplished in this world for those whose minds are intent upon it.

Contemplating sense-objects in the mind while outwardly performing the worship of Hari,

even with abundant provisions, one does not obtain the stated fruit.

Restraining his own mind, which wanders here and there in vulgar pleasures, from that [distraction],

one who desires liberation should become intent upon the worship of Viṣṇu.

Even those of great vows, those of immense austerities, those who have thoroughly studied the Vedas, those who are intelligent,

and those practicing Sāṃkhya and Yoga do not achieve perfection at all without the worship of Hari.

Thus ends the twenty-ninth chapter, entitled 'Determination of the Rite of Worship of Śrī Vāsudeva' in [the section on] the Yoga of Action, in the Glorious Vāsudevamāhātmya of the second [part], the Vaiṣṇavakhaṇḍa, in the Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.