Skandapurana 5.175

Sūta said: / Having seen the liṅga consecrated by the wise Yājñavalkya, / he, for the sake of his mother's purification, [installed] an excellent liṅga in her name.

Filled with supreme faith, he installed [it], O best of brahmins! / And then, having brought a leader of brahmins, an inhabitant of the middle region, born among the Nāgaras, / born at Gartātīrtha, an Āhitāgni, an officiating priest, [he said:] / 'Just as this is a city-settlement, so you too are an initiated [priest].

Established in the leadership among the sixty-eight gotras, / by your word, O best of the twice-born, all gotras

shall carry out their rites as long as the moon, sun, and stars endure. / O Govardhana, care regarding this must be taken by you.

The Nāgaras are to be prompted to worship the liṅga. / Through worship of that liṅga your lineage will increase.

Through non-worship it will go to destruction; there is no doubt about this. / And those born of your lineage who, having worshipped with intense devotion,

this liṅga, will perform various rites— / those [rites] will attain success by its grace, O initiated one!'

Govardhana said: / "I shall always perform the worship of this liṅga, O twice-born! / And I shall display devotion on this account, on this account, O twice-born, / and also for the sake of worship, those others who are born in my lineage [shall do so]."

Pippalāda said: / "O Govardhana, quickly bring the N競争gara brahmins here; / according to their opinion, I shall confer the name upon the god."

Thereupon he caused the wise brahmins to be brought, / endowed with learning in the sacred scriptures and devoted to sacrificial rites.

Having bowed to them, the great sage Pippalāda spoke aloud: / "My mother, Kaṃsārī by name, previously died.

In her name, this liṅga has been consecrated by me. / By your word, O best of the twice-born, let it attain fame!

And whoever bathes it on the eighth and the fourteenth [lunar day], / along with the one arising from Yājñavalkyeśvara, he shall indeed attain the highest good."

Sūta said: / Then, by all those brahmins, out of respect for that virtuous sage, / its name was established as 'Kaṃsārīśvara'.

All this, about which I was asked, has been related to you, O best of the twice-born, / how the sin-destroying [liṅga] named Kaṃsārīśvara came to be, / installed by the high-souled Pippalāda himself.

And whoever reads or listens to this sacred narrative / in the presence of that god, endowed with full capacity,

whatever sin was conceived in the mind or committed with another's wife, / that [sin] of his goes to destruction, in accordance with the words of Pippalāda.

He who with devotion constantly recites the Nīlarudras before it, / especially the Prāṇarudras together with the Bhavarudras,

And the [sin] arising from the murder of a brahmin is also destroyed for him. / When danger from a foreign army arises, and likewise when there is fear of drought, 6.176.20

and the Atharvaveda is recited completely from beginning to end before him, / the enemy goes to destruction, and rain quickly falls. 21

When misfortune befalls the king, the king becomes righteous, / freed from all disease, and intent on protecting his subjects. 22

When fear of affliction arises, his defect is pacified / slowly and surely, according to the words of Pippalāda. 23

Or what need is there to say much to you? Whatever great distress there is, / that distress of his, from reciting the [hymns of the] Atharvan, 24

goes quickly to destruction before this deity. 25

Thus ends the one hundred and seventy-sixth chapter, named “The Description of the Māhātmya of the Origin of Kaṃsāreśvara,” in the Māhātmya of Hāṭakeśvarakṣetra, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [section], in the Skandamahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses. 176