Skandapurana 5.156

Sūta said: / Thus addressed by those people then, O brahmins, / Puṣpa, enraged, then said to them: "I will not take food

as long as I do not exact retribution against this sinner. / Therefore tell me, O fortunate ones, is there a god or goddess,

or likewise other perfected mantras, which produce immediate proof, / which, when propitiated, immediately bestow boons upon mortals?"

The people said: / "One god resides here who produces immediate proof; / likewise one goddess on the surface of the earth is renowned here."

Puṣpa said: / "Who is that god? How far away and in what place is he situated? / And tell me of that goddess, taking compassion upon me."

The people said: / "In Camatkārapura, there is the Sun consecrated by Yājñavalkya. / He has been heard of by us, O brahmin, as one who produces immediate proof.

A man who performs circumambulation of him on a Sunday on the seventh [tithi], / holding fruit in hand, one hundred and eight times, O brahmin,

to him he bestows perfection and grants fully what is desired in the mind. / Likewise, another is the goddess named Śāradā, dwelling in Kashmir;

merely through the observance of fasting, she too is a granter of success." / Having heard that statement of those people, O best of brahmins,

directing his course towards Camatkāra from that place thereafter, / having reached Camatkārapura on a Sunday on the seventh [tithi],

having arrived there, then having bathed, pure and collected in mind, / he went to where the Sun established by Yājñavalkya stands.

Then, having performed circumambulations measuring one hundred and eight, / and having taken coconuts, endowed with supreme faith,

his throat emaciated by hunger, exhausted, he then sat in front of him, / reciting japa with hymns beloved by the Sun,

employing a high pitch with texts beginning with the Maṇḍalabrāhmaṇa, / with hymns beginning with 'Saptayuñjanti' and 'Agnireva' with devotion,

possessing firm devotion, with Sāmans such as the one named Ādityavrata, / and with hymns preceded by the Kṣurikāmantra, as well as those arising from the Atharvaveda.

Until another Sunday came, the Maker of Day was not at all pleased; / when the full moon day arrived, he fell into the utmost dejection.

Then Puṣpa, having performed his snāna, clad in clean clothes and purified, / having consecrated the ground by the name of the Earth for the sacrificial mound, O best of brahmins,

prepared a sacrificial mound measuring one cubit upon the ground; / and having then placed the fire [there] with the mantra 'agnim īḷe',

and then having scattered grass with 'I strew grass all around', / having then provided the seat for the Brahman priest with the mantra 'ā brahman',

having placed the kindling sticks reciting 'sutrāmāṇam', / having fetched the vessel of sprinkling water, he then performed the sprinkling.

Then, having [sprinkled] all the vessels beginning with the ladle in proper order, / he designated his own body in place of the sacrificial offering.

And in place of the deity, in accordance with the preceptor's rule, / [he performed] the taking up and the sprinkling, and afterwards [the offering] with 'To Sūrya [svāhā]'.

Then, having recited 'This is thy firewood, thy self' over the kindling stick, / and then having offered two ghee oblations with the two mantras to Agni and Soma,

having performed the homa of the sacred utterances, 'bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ', O brahmins, / and having offered here a dreadful [sacrifice] with mantras such as 'ye te śatam',

he invoked the Fire: 'O god, become visible to me!' / Having thus turned the blazing fire toward himself with the mantra,

and having summoned those known as the seven tongues, Kālī, Karālikā, and the rest, / then, into the blazing devourer of oblations,

he cut off and offered pieces of his own flesh with a weapon; / and having offered to the intermediate directions and the directions with 'svāhā to the hairs', thereafter,

just as he was about to cast himself [into the fire] with 'To Agni Sviṣṭakṛt', / he was seized on all sides by Sūrya with his own hand.

And held respectfully by him, [he heard:] 'Do not commit such a reckless act, O brahmin! / Such a homa has never anywhere been performed by anyone, O twice-born!

I am pleased, O fortunate one; tell me, what shall I do for you? / Even what should not be given I will give, whatever is in your mind.'

Puṣpa said: / 'If you are pleased, O Lord of gods, if a boon is to be granted to me, / then let that pair of pills be given for the sake of which I pray.

In the city of Vaidiśa there is a very wealthy man, Maṇibhadra, / a kṣatriya whose limbs are hunchbacked, O god, and who is covered with wrinkles of old age,

hostile to brahmins, vile, a miser, reviled by the people. / Whenever I put one of the two into my mouth,

may I assume an exact form just like his, without doubt; / and whenever I take and put in the second one,

may my natural form return, O Lord of the gods. / Maṇibhadra is in the city of Vaidiśa, O Lord of the gods;

further, whatever wealth, grain, and the like is in his house, / let all that be known to me; may it come to be so, O god!

Or what need is there to say much? His friends, his kinsmen, / and all his affairs, let them always be completely open [to me].

Let no doubt arise anywhere in anyone / regarding me, or even regarding that wretched man, in all actions at all times.'

Bhāskara said: / 'Receive, O fortunate one, the auspicious pair of pills, / white and black, which, placed in the mouth, produce a great transformation.

By the white one, you will surely take his form; / and by the black one, you will regain your own, O great twice-born.'

Puṣpa said: / 'Tell me another thing, O god, a doubt that remains in my heart, / which I ask you, O Lord of the gods, increasing your glory.

I have heard, O best of gods, that on a Sunday of the seventh tithi, / whoever circumambulates you one hundred and eight times, / with fruit in hand, to him you grant fulfillment at that very moment,

even if he is a fool, a sinner, and possessed of all faults. / Why is it that to me, who know the four Vedas and am devoted to pilgrimages,

you were pleased only after seven nights had passed, when such a homa was performed?'

The glorious Sūrya said: / 'All this was done by you with a dark, ignorant disposition; / therefore, all that was done by you came to naught.

Whatever is done, O brahmin, by those who resort to an ignorant disposition, / all that becomes useless; do you not know this?

Having spoken thus, Sūrya touched his limbs / that had been cut, with his own hand, and made them free of wounds.

And standing with a gracious countenance, he spoke again to Puṣpa: / 'Whoever performs the kuśaṇḍikā rite according to this very procedure,

relying upon a gentle disposition, and performs homa especially with kindling sticks / from the arka plant, and with sesame and unbroken grains,

reciting the meter and seer, for up to one thousand [oblations], / to him I will grant the desire in his heart, a fruit greater than the greatest.'

Having spoken thus, the thousand-rayed sun disappeared right there; / like a lamp, it was not perceived by what path he departed.

Thus ends the one hundred fifty-seventh chapter, entitled "The Description of the Brahmin Puṣpa's Attainment of a Boon from Sūrya," in the section on the majesty of the sacred field of Hāṭakeśvara, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [book] in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.