Skandapurana 3.3.17

The seers said:

When instruction is given to men by gurus who know the truth of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas,

who proclaim the ultimate reality, success is indeed achieved instantly.

Now, when instruction is given to men by gurus who are ordinary people,

merely skilled in worldly conduct, what kind of success comes to be?

Sūta said:

Faith alone is exceedingly beneficial to all religious duty;

by faith alone do men attain success in both worlds.

To a person who worships with faith, even a stone yields fruit;

even a fool, when venerated with devotion as a guru, becomes a granter of success.

A mantra recited with faith, even if incorrectly composed, yields fruit;

a deity worshiped with faith yields fruit even to a low-born man.

Worship, gifting, sacrifice, austerity, and vow performed without faith—

all goes to fruitlessness, like a flower on a barren tree.

Filled with doubt on every side, devoid of faith, and excessively fickle,

fallen away from the supreme goal, he is never freed from worldly existence.

In a mantra, a sacred ford, a twice-born, a deity, an astrologer, medicine, and a guru,

whatever disposition [one has] toward it, of such kind is the success that ensues.

Therefore, the universe consists of disposition; merit and sin proceed from disposition;

neither of those two can ever exist for one devoid of disposition.

In this connection, a most wondrous tale is recounted,

by which the lack of faith of all mortals is instantly dispelled.

There was a son of the king of Pāñcāla, renowned as Siṃhaketu,

endowed with every good quality, always devoted to the duty of the warrior class.

Once, accompanied by a few servants, that mighty prince

went for a hunt into a forest teeming with wild animals.

A certain hunter, his servant, roving about in the forest on the hunt,

saw an ancient, cracked, and ruined temple of a deity.

There he saw, fallen upon bare ground with its pedestal broken,

a straight, fine Śiva-liṅga, like his own good fortune personified.

Swiftly picking it up, impelled by deeds from previous lives,

he showed it to that wise prince:

“See this delightful liṅga that I have found here, my lord!

Therefore, I shall worship it respectfully according to my means.

Tell me the procedure for its worship, so that the god Maheśvara,

worshiped both by those ignorant of mantras and those knowing mantras, becomes pleased.”

Thus questioned by that hunter, the prince,

expert in mockery, laughed and answered him:

“One should always perform the bath through mental resolve with fresh water.

Having seated [it] upon a pure seat, with auspicious, fresh perfumes and unbroken rice grains,

and with wild leaves, blossoms, incenses, and lamps, one should worship [it].

And one should first arrange an offering of funeral-pyre ash;

the wise man should provide a food offering with food that he himself eats.

And once again one should arrange services such as incense and lamps;

one should properly arrange dances, instrumental music, songs, and the like.

Then, having bowed down according to the rules, the wise man should take the prasāda.

This has been declared to you as the general rule for worshiping Śiva.

Śaṃkara is instantly pleased by an offering of funeral-pyre ash.”

Sūta said:

Having been instructed in this manner in a spirit of jest by his master,

And that Śabara named Caṇḍaka accepted his instruction upon his head.

Then, having returned to his dwelling, he worshipped Maheśvara in the form of a liṅga,

every day offering the ashes of funeral pyres as a present.

And whatever thing was pleasing to himself—sandalwood paste, flowers, unhusked barley grains, and so forth—

he daily offered to Śambhu, and only then enjoyed it himself.

Thus, with devotion, together with his wife, he worshipped Maheśvara;

having attained happiness, the Śabara spent several years [in this way].

Once, when that excellent Śabara set about to perform the worship of Śiva,

he did not see even a particle of pyre-ashes filling the vessel.

Then, in haste, searching far away and wandering all around,

he found no pyre-ashes; weary, he returned home once more.

Then, having called his wife, the Śabara spoke these words:

“I have found no pyre-ashes. Tell me, beloved, what shall I do?

Alas, an obstacle to the worship of Śiva has arisen today for me, a sinner!

Without that worship, I cannot bear to live even for a moment.

I see no means here, when the implement for worship is ruined;

nor should the command of the guru, which grants all aims, be violated.”

Seeing her husband thus distressed, the Śabara woman

replied: “Do not fear; I will tell you a means.

Burning this very house, accumulated over a long time,

I will enter the fire; from that, pyre-ashes will come to be.”

The Śabara said:

“The body is the supreme instrument for virtue, wealth, pleasure, and liberation.

How can you abandon that body, possessing fresh youth, meant for happiness?

Now you are childless, not having enjoyed the nectar of sense-objects;

how can you desire here to burn this body, fit for enjoyment?”

The Śabarī said:

“Only this is the fruition of life and birth:

that one should abandon one's life-breaths for the sake of another—how much more for the sake of Śiva himself?

What terrible austerity did I perform, or what did I give in the past,

or what worship of Śambhu was performed over a hundred past births,

or what merit was my father's, and what fulfillment was my mother's,

that for the sake of Śiva I may abandon this body in the kindled fire?”

Seeing her mind thus resolute and her devotion to Śaṃkara,

the Śabara, firm in resolve, honored [her proposal], saying: “So be it.”

Having approached her husband, bathed, pure and adorned,

having set fire to the house, she circumambulated that blaze with devotion.

Bowing to her own guru and meditating upon Sadāśiva in her heart,

facing to enter the fire, she sang this with folded hands:

The Śabarī said:

“O Lord, let my senses be your flowers, this body fragrant aloe-incense, and my heart the lamp;

let my life-breaths be the oblations, and your organs of action the unhusked grains; let this soul now attain the fruit of worship!

I do not desire dominion over all wealth, nor the immovable realm of heaven, nor the state of the Creator;

if I am born again and again, birth after birth, may I be a female bee for the nectar glistening upon your lotus feet!

Let there be more than a hundred births for me, O Lord, [so long as] delusion, the cause of ignorance, does not enter my mind;

may my heart not depart even for half a moment from your lotus feet, O Lord! Homage, homage to you!”

Having thus propitiated the Lord of gods, the Śabarī, firm in resolve,

entered the blazing fire and in an instant was reduced to ashes.

The Śabara also, having carefully taken those ashes,

collected in mind, performed the worship of Śiva beside the burned house.

Then, at the end of the worship, he remembered his beloved, who was accustomed to receiving the prasāda,

who always used to come with folded hands, endowed with humility.

As soon as she was remembered, he then saw her, arrived and standing behind him,

with her former limbs, bowed in devotion, smiling purely.

Beholding that wife, the Śabara saw her standing with folded hands as before,

and the house that had been reduced to ashes standing just as before.

“Fire burns with radiance; the sun burns with rays;

a king burns with punishment; a brahmin may burn with the mind.

Is this a dream, or is it an illusion of a deceptive nature?”

Thus bewildered with astonishment, he questioned her again.

"And how did you arrive here, having been reduced to ashes in the fire?

And how is the house, which was burned, standing again as before?"

The Śabarī said:

"When, having set the house ablaze, I entered the fire,

then I did not feel myself, nor did I see the fire.

There was not even a speck of heat for me, as if I had entered water.

As if asleep for half a moment, I woke up again in a moment.

Then I saw the house standing firmly, as if unburned.

Now I have come to receive the prasāda at the conclusion of your worship of the god."

While the husband and wife were thus speaking to each other with love,

a wonderful celestial vimāna appeared before them.

On that vimāna, radiant as a hundred moons, four leaders, attendants of Īśa,

took the Niṣāda husband and wife by the hand and placed them on board without relinquishing their bodies.

At that very instant, the body of that Niṣāda husband and wife,

from the touch of the Śivadūtas' hands, attained conformity of form with him.

Therefore, faith alone should be cultivated in all meritorious deeds.

Even a low-born Śabara attained the state of yogins through faith.

What is the use of birth that is highest among all castes? What is the use of learning that analyzes all scriptures?

He in whose heart there is always devotion to the Supreme Lord—what other man in the three worlds is blessed compared to him?

Thus ends the seventeenth chapter, named 'The Description of the Greatness of Holy Ashes', in the Brahmottarakhaṇḍa in the third part of the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.