Skandapurana 5.115

Sūta said: / Likewise, there is another goddess there, well-renowned as Ambārevatī, / who grants desires to men and brings happiness to children.

Beholding her and then worshiping her, especially on the eighth day / of the bright fortnight of Caitra, a mortal will never experience family disaster anywhere.

The seers said: / By whom was that goddess Ambārevatī installed there? / Of what power is she, and of what form? Tell us, O Sūta's son!

Sūta said: / When various nāgas fierce with venom and with eyes blood-red from rage / were ordered by Śeṣa to destroy that city, / then his beloved wife, tormented by grief for her son,

went ahead by herself and devoured that twice-born / along with his family, by whom her son had been killed.

Now that eminent twice-born had a younger sister afflicted by early widowhood, / endowed with austerity and devoted to celibacy.

Seeing her whole family devoured by the nāga's wife, / she, named Bhaṭṭikā, took water in her hand and said:

"Because my family has been brought to ruin by you, O double-tongued one, / and great suffering arising from my kin has been shown to me,

so you too, attaining the utterly despised human state, / obtaining a human husband and acquiring sons and grandsons,

shall experience in human form the sorrow born of their destruction! / To you who are now in the condition of a serpent, I pronounce this curse!"

Hearing that curse pronounced by Bhaṭṭikā, Revatī, / seized with great rage, immediately bit her then.

Then, striking her body, the serpent-wife's fang, fierce with poison, / shattered into a hundred pieces, and did not pierce her skin anywhere.

Then, overwhelmed with shame, her face washed in her own blood, / dejected, she sat down, settling upon the ground.

Meanwhile, the other nāgas who had arrived, / beholding Revatī in such a state, stricken with fear, / said: "What is this seat of pain on your mouth, O lady?

Or whose blood is this rich effusion the effect of?"

Revatī said: / "This most wicked female ascetic who is seen here— / from her this affliction has arisen in my mouth, O best of serpents!

Therefore, this most wicked sister of that foolish / twice-born's son by whom my son was just slain,

devour her! Devour her quickly, who stands here for my destruction! / The blood now in my mouth is on her account, O best of serpents!"

Then those enraged serpents bit that ascetic woman / equally on all her limbs, as if she were some ordinary woman.

Then their fangs also broke forth from their mouths, / and blood emerged from them just as it did for Śeṣa's wife.

Then, seeing her power, those remaining foremost serpents / fled in terror in the ten directions.

Bhaṭṭikā too went quickly toward her own hermitage, grieving, / watched on all sides by the great serpents who were frightened with fear.

Then, seeing everything being tormented by the great serpents, / that place was abandoned by their relatives, who were filled with great sorrow.

That virtuous woman, fully intent on her vows, went elsewhere; / performing a pilgrimage to sacred fords, she wandered the earth.

When that place was thus abandoned, Revatī then, / remembering Bhaṭṭikā's curse, was seized with great sorrow:

"How will dwelling in a human womb come about for me through this curse, / and union with a human husband happen?

This grief arising for my son does not torment me in my heart / as much as this dwelling in a human womb and facing a human [husband]!

Moreover, deprived of my teeth, how shall I show my face / to my husband again? Here salt has been rubbed into my wound!

Therefore, remaining right here in this sacred field, I shall worship. / What will I do upon reaching home, deprived of my son?"

Then, endowed with full faith, she installed the goddess Ambikā, / sovereign of the gods, and worshiped her

with offerings of incense, flowers, and various kinds of food offerings, / as well as charming songs, dances, and musical instruments.

Then, after a few days, the sovereign of the gods, pleased with her, / said: "I am the granter of boons; ask for what is in your heart."

Revatī said: / "Formerly, O goddess, I was cursed by a brahmin woman on another occasion: / 'Becoming a human woman yourself and obtaining a human [husband],

you shall then suffer the fruit arising from their destruction, / afflicted by the great sorrow born of your own sons through my curse.'

Likewise, the fangs have been drawn from my mouth, O ruler of the gods. / How, then, by your power, can their rebirth come to be?

May we have sons who will carry on our lineage! / This is my desire, O goddess; I ask for nothing else.

The goddess said: / You must by no means dwell here, O lovely lady; / there shall be dwelling in a human womb, and your husband shall be a mortal man.

Therefore listen to my word which I shall speak to you now, / bringing destruction to your sorrow, and true, O fair-complexioned one.

For the accomplishment of the work of the gods, there is no doubt: / your husband will take a human form and be born in this threefold world.

Likewise, the serpent named Takṣaka, through the power of a twice-born's curse, O auspicious lady, / will become a king named Raivata in the Saurāṣṭra realm.

His wife will be Kṣemakarī, born of a distinguished family— / there is no doubt—eminent through a curse of a brahmin.

Entering her womb, you will attain birth; / and you will once again become the wife of Śeṣa who will have the form of Rāma.

Therefore, O goddess, do not grieve over this matter, O fair one; / by that means your birth shall take place in a human womb.

The destruction that you will see there, arising among your own kin, / shall without doubt occur for the good of that condition.

For after that, O timid one, the sinful age will arrive; / thereafter barbarians, following mortal ways, will establish themselves everywhere.

Then, in order to return to his heavenly abode, the Lord, the son of Devakī, / will himself destroy his entire clan; there is no doubt.

The delightful fangs in your mouth will appear again; / therefore go to Pātāla, where your husband dwells.

And whatever other desire is set within your heart, / declare that, O blessed lady; great satisfaction remains in me.

Revatī said: / You must always dwell in this very place in my name, O ruler of the gods, / so that my fame may arise in the three worlds, both moving and unmoving.

And from the serpent world, on the fourteenth and eighth lunar days, / I will always worship you, especially on the ninth day.

In the bright fortnight of Āśvina, accompanied by all the serpents, / I will perform your worship endowed with supreme faith.

On that day, whatever other men offer worship to you, / may those men, by your grace, never see the loss of their loved ones.

The goddess said: / So I will do, gentle lady; my dwelling shall be here. / In your name I will always bestow welfare upon your worshippers, / especially on the day born of Mahānavamī, O lady of radiant smile.

Sūta said: / Thus addressed by her, Revatī, beloved of Śeṣa, / then went to her own home filled with great joy.

From that time forward, that goddess remained in that sacred field, / fulfilling men's desires and destroying all distress under that name.

She is celebrated as Ambā, as Durgā, and as Revatī, dear to the serpents; / therefore she is proclaimed on the earth and in the world as Ambārevatī.

Whoever, endowed with faith, becomes pure and worships her / with concentrated mind on the ninth day of the bright fortnight in the month of Āśvina, / for the space of a year does not [experience] distress arising in his own clan.

Having beheld the opening inhabited by the serpent in front, he is freed from faults, / from those arising from planets, spirits, and piśācas, as well as from other afflictions.

Thus ends the one hundred and sixteenth chapter, named 'Description of the Glory of the Ambārevatī Sacred Ford,' in the glorification of the Hāṭakeśvara sacred field, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [section], in the Mahāpurāṇa of Skanda consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.