Skandapurana 3.1.8

The seers said:

O venerable Sūta, omniscient one, dear to Kṛṣṇadvaipāyana,

having heard stories from your mouth that shower nectar into our ears, // 1

satisfaction does not arise in us, who drink the nectar of your speech.

Therefore, speak further auspicious stories to us who are eager to listen. // 2

To the south of Cakratīrtha there is [a tīrtha] named Vetālavarada;

"there is a most holy sacred ford," so you said previously. // 3

How did the name Vetālavarada come to this sacred ford?

And what is the power of that sacred ford? You ought to tell us this. // 4

Glorious Sūta said:

Indeed, you have asked well, O chiefs of sages, about an extremely secret matter.

Listen with [attentive] mind; I shall tell a most wondrous story, // 5

hearing which auspicious story even the lowest people rejoice.

And this most holy story was told long ago on Mount Kailāsa, // 6

during playful moments, by Śambhu to Pārvatī, O twice-born ones.

I shall tell you this exceedingly wonderful story. // 7

Long ago, a great seer named Gālava, truthful of speech and pure,

meditating on the supreme Brahman, performed austerity in his own hermitage. // 8

His highly fortunate daughter, endowed with beauty and youth,

a young girl named Kāntimatī, moved about near her father. // 9

Bringing flowers for that sage's offering,

sweeping the sacrificial altar and gathering firewood, // 10

the maiden served her father properly.

Once, set upon gathering flowers for the offering, // 11

Kāntimatī went very far into that forest.

Having collected delightful flowers there in a basket, // 12

the girl, devoted to serving her father, quickly turned back.

As that maiden was returning, two young Vidyādharas // 13

named Sudarśana and Sukarṇa, standing in an aerial chariot, saw [her].

Seeing Gālava's daughter endowed with beauty and youth, // 14

like Kāma's charming wife Rati in bodily form,

the elder young Vidyādhara named Sudarśana, // 15

his eyes wide open with joy, was bewildered by passion and desired her.

Gazing repeatedly at her whose face was like the full moon, // 16

wishing to sport with her, he descended from the front of the aerial chariot.

Approaching the sage's daughter, Sudarśana spoke as follows: // 17

Sudarśana said:

Who are you, fair one? Whose daughter are you, endowed with beauty and youth?

For this peerless beauty delights my mind. // 18

Seeing you resemble Rati, love torments me.

I am the son of the lord of the Vidyādharas named Sukaṇṭha, // 19

endowed with beauty, and named Sudarśana.

Accept me, fair one, and protect me with a compassionate glance. // 20

Having attained me as your husband, you will obtain all pleasures.

Having heard those words of the son of the Vidyādhara, // 21

Kāntimatī then spoke words accordant with righteousness:

O fortunate Sudarśana, son of the lord of the Vidyādharas! // 22

Know me to be the daughter of the high-souled Gālava.

And I am an unmarried girl devoted to the service of my father. // 23

I came to gather flowers for my father's offering,

and while I was gathering the flowers, a watch of the day has elapsed. // 24

Because of my delay, that sage, intent on worshipping the deities,

that ascetic, best among sages, will surely become angry. // 25

Therefore, I must go quickly now; the flowers have also been gathered by me.

Maidens are dependent on their father and never independent. // 26

If you desire me, ask my father.

Having spoken thus to the son of the Vidyādhara at that time, // 27

Kāntimatī, apprehensive about her father, prepared to go quickly to the hermitage.

Seeing her walking away, the young Vidyādhara,

afflicted by desire, ran quickly and seized her by the hair.

Seeing him approaching and seizing her hair,

the sage's daughter suddenly cried aloud like an osprey:

"Save me, father, O lord, from this son of a Vidyādhara!

Today the wicked-minded son of a Vidyādhara is seizing me by force!"

Thus she cried out loudly, not very far from their hermitage.

Hearing that cry, the dwellers of Gandhamādana,

the sages, placing Gālava, the foremost of sages, at their head,

came quickly to that place to find out what had happened.

Arriving at that place, all those foremost seers

saw the maiden daughter of the sage seized by the Vidyādhara,

and the other Vidyādhara youth standing nearby.

Seeing this, the great ascetic Gālava, foremost of sages,

fell slightly under the sway of anger and cursed that wicked soul:

"Because you have committed such a deed, O vilest of Vidyādharas,

therefore go into a human womb, the fruit of your own evil action!

Having attained a human birth filled with much suffering,

in a short time, in that very birth,

you shall enter the state of a vetāla, censured even by men.

You shall constantly feed on flesh and blood.

Vetālas, like rākṣasas, seize women by force.

Therefore, having become human, you shall attain the state of a vetāla.

Your younger brother, who assented to your evil deed,

known as Sukarṇa, he too shall become a human.

However, since he did not directly perform such an act,

he shall have merely the human state, but no state of a vetāla.

When this younger [brother] of yours sees the lord of the Vidyādharas

named Vijñaptikautuka, then he shall be released from the curse.

But you, the perpetrator of such a deed of great sin,

having attained human existence, in that very birth,

having obtained birth as a vetāla, shall wander long in the world."

Having spoken thus, Gālava, taking his daughter along with the sages,

and having cursed the two Vidyādhara youths, departed toward his own hermitage.

Then, when that exalted one, the foremost among sages, had departed,

the two sons of the lord of the Vidyādharas, named Sudarśana and Sukarṇa,

tormented by grief due to the sage's curse, deliberated deeply.

Having decided what was to be done, those two, Sudarśana and Sukarṇa,

chose as father a brahmin named Govindasvāmin,

an inhabitant of the bank of the Yamunā and endowed with virtuous conduct;

casting off their own forms, they were born as his two sons.

They became his two sons named Vijayadatta and Aśokadatta.

The elder, Sudarśana, was born as the son named Vijayadatta,

and the younger, Sukarṇa, was indeed named Aśokadatta.

Vijayadatta and Aśokadatta in due course reached youth.

At that very time, on the auspicious bank of the Yamunā,

because of drought there arose a twelve-year famine.

The brahmin named Govindasvāmin, a master of the Vedas,

seeing his own town afflicted by famine at that time,

set out for the city of Kāśī with his sons and his wife.

Having reached Prayāga and seen the great banyan tree,

he saw before him an ascetic adorned with a garland of skulls.

He, the one named Govindasvāmin, bowed down to that sage.

The sage bestowed blessings upon him with his sons and his wife,

and spoke these words to Govindasvāmin:

"Now, O best of brahmins, your separation

from this eldest son, Vijayadatta, will happen soon."

Hearing his word, the one named Govindasvāmin,

after the sun had set there and he had finished his evening rites,

the brahmin, with his wife and sons, exhausted from the very long journey,

he stayed for that night in a deserted temple.

Then Aśokadatta and the brahmin woman, both exhausted,

spread out a cloth on the ground and fell asleep during the night.

Then Vijayadatta, however, from traversing a long road,

became completely exhausted and severely afflicted with a cold fever.

Although he was held tightly in an embrace by his father, Govindasvāmin,

in order to dispel the distress of the cold, he could not shake off the tormenting cold.

"Father, a cold fever torments me excessively right now.

To remove this distress, bring fire without delay!"

Hearing these words of his son, he searched everywhere for fire;

unable to find fire, he approached his son again and said:

"Son, I find no fire, though I have searched everywhere.

Since it is the middle of the night and the doors are shut,

the townsfolk, overcome by sleep, will certainly not give fire."

Thus addressed by his father, Vijayadatta, sick with fever,

begged his father again for fire in a pitiful voice:

"Afflicted as I am by the tormenting cold arisen from this ague,

the wind laden with icy mist torments me doubly today.

Father, you spoke falsely indeed when you said fire was not found!

Straight ahead in the distance, crowned with a mass of flames,

a fire is seen licking the sky with its crests—look!

Quickly bring that fire, father, to dispel this cold!"

To his son who spoke thus, the father replied:

"I do not speak untruth, my son; today I speak only the truth.

That place with fire is seen only from afar.

Know, son, that it is the place of the ancestral forest [the cremation ground].

The fire that burns ahead, its flames scraping the sky,

know that, my son, to be the terrifying fire of a funeral pyre.

It is inauspicious and must not be used, this pyre fire corrupted by touch.

The lifespan of one who resorts to the fire of a pyre diminishes.

Therefore, son, thinking, 'Let there be no loss of your lifespan,'

I did not fetch this pyre fire, inauspicious and [unfit] to touch."

To his father who spoke thus, the miserable [son] replied:

"Let it be a corpse-fire or let it be a sacrificial fire;

bring it by all means, otherwise I will die!"

Then, overwhelmed by affection for his son, to fetch the pyre fire,

he named Govindasvāmin quickly went to the cremation ground.

When Govindasvāmin had gone to fetch the pyre fire,

Vijayadatta also hurriedly followed behind him as he went.

Reaching the vicinity of the heat, the funeral pyre fire strewn with bones,

as if embracing it anxiously, he gradually obtained relief.

Then he said to his father: "What is this circular thing,

shining brightly in the fire, resembling a red lotus?"

Hearing these words of his son, that best of brahmins,

having examined it closely, spoke these words in reply:

Govindasvāmin said:

"This is a skull, rounded by the ring of flames of the fire,

rich in marrow, bone, and flesh, resembling a red lotus."

Hearing this, the brahmin's son struck it with the tip of a piece of wood,

whereby his mouth was drenched with marrow discharged from its bursting.

Licking repeatedly with his tongue the blood that smeared his mouth

upon striking the skull, he tasted that blood.

Having thus tasted it, taking up that skull agitatedly,

and drinking the marrow, he became gigantic in body and terrifying.

Immediately, that night, he turned into a vetāla with sharp fangs.

With the sound of his burst of wild laughter, the quarters and intermediate directions,

heaven, the intermediate space, and the earth seemed to burst apart everywhere.

As he rushed impetuously, dragging his father to kill him,

a voice appeared in the sky, saying, "Do not commit such violence!"

Hearing that divine voice, that terrifying vetāla...

Leaving his father, endowed with great speed,

he swiftly entered the sky and departed with unhindered flight.

Having traveled a great distance, he joined with the vetālas.

Seeing him arrive, all those vetālas,

since he had attained vetālahood through the bursting of a skull,

then addressed him by the name Kapālasphoṭana.

Then that Kapālasphoṭa, surrounded on all sides by vetālas,

endowed with great strength, swiftly reached the presence of the king of the vetālas,

who was named Narāsthibhūṣaṇa.

And Narāsthibhūṣaṇa appointed him commander of the army.

Once, a powerful gandharva named Citrasena

slew Narāsthibhūṣaṇa in battle, and he died.

When Narāsthibhūṣaṇa was killed by the gandharva in combat,

then that Kapālasphoṭa obtained his position.

Sudarśana, the son of the lord of vidyādharas, having first gone to the human state,

and then attained vetālahood because of the great seer's curse, gradually became the lord of the vetālas.

Thus ends the eighth chapter, titled 'Description of Sudarśana’s Attainment of the State of a Vetāla', in the Praise of the Vetālavarada Tīrtha, in the Setumāhātmya, in the third Brahmakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.