Skandapurana 5.193

Sūta said: / Having thus granted those boons to all who had shared in the curses, / she undertook the vow of silence and then sat upon the ground. / 1

Then all the hosts of gods, the ascetics, and the great seers / said to her, "Well done! Well done!" and then spoke these words: / 2

"By the grace of the goddess, especially towards brahmins, / all people here in the mortal world will worship her with focused minds. / 3

Having worshipped Brahmā, those mortals who subsequently / worship this ruler of the gods go to the supreme state. / 4

Whatever maiden, having attained union with a husband, being composed in mind, / then performs prostration at the feet of Gāyatrī, / having obtained a husband like Prajāpati, she will undoubtedly flourish. / 5

Endowed with the happiness of all desires, possessed of wealth and grain, / a woman who was unfortunate or barren will also become blessed." / 6

The seers said: / Regarding what was spoken by you—that when one hundred and five / lotus-born [Brahmās] had passed, Hara granted this incomparable [gift] / 7

to the brahmins, pleased [with them]—is there perhaps another Maheśvara? / You ought to explain this doubt of ours once again as it truly is. / 8

Tell us the measure of the lifespan of Śaṃkara, / and likewise of Hari and of Brahmā, for our curiosity is indeed great. / 9

Sūta said: / I shall describe to you in detail, O best of brahmins, / the measure established for the lifespans of all three: / 10

The fourth part of a nimeṣa is a truṭi; two of those are a lava; / two lavas are called a kalā, and a kāṣṭhā is fifteen [kalās]. / 11

Thirty kāṣṭhās they call a kalā; a kṣaṇa is considered thirty kalās; / astrologers state the measure of a muhūrta to be twelve kṣaṇas. / 12

Thirty muhūrtas are indicated by the wise as a day and night; / a month is made of thirty days and nights; two months are designated a season. / 13

Three seasons are a solstice, and two solstices are a year; / and that, O best of brahmins, is a single day and night of the gods. / 14

There the northern solstice is the day, and the other is the night. / By seventeen lakhs of human years / 15

and by another twenty-eight thousand, / the first, the Kṛtayuga, will be [measured], O good brahmins. / 16

Then, by twelve hundred thousand and sixteen thousand [human years], / the Tretāyuga, the second [age], is declared, O best of brahmins.

And the Dvāpara, the third, is proclaimed as eight hundred thousand / and sixty-four thousand, according to the proper reckoning.

Four hundred thousand and thirty-two thousand [years] / is declared for the age arising as Kali, the fourth; so the wise know it.

By a thousand sets of four yugas, a day of the Grandfather [Brahmā] is formed. / A month of theirs consists of thirty days; by twelve months a year is formed.

Brahmā, the Grandfather, lives for a hundred of these [years]. / At present he has stood for eight years and six months.

Of this first day, the pratipad, there have passed / two yāmas on the current Friday for that great soul.

By merely one year of Brahmā, a day of Viṣṇu is declared.

He too lives for a hundred years by his own reckoning. / Fifty-five years are declared [to have elapsed] since his birth,

along with five tithis and half a yāma, on a Monday. / By a year of Viṣṇu, a day of Maheśvara is formed.

Śiva remains in that form for up to a hundred years, / for as long as the breath exhalation of the mouth arising from Sadāśiva lasts.

Afterward he approaches Śakti, for as long as there is an inhalation. / And of the inhalations and exhalations of all embodied beings,

of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva, and of gandharvas, serpents, and rākṣasas, / twenty-one thousand and six hundred

are spoken of in the measure of a day and night, O best of brahmins. / By six exhalations and inhalations, one pala proceeds.

A nāḍī is declared to be sixty palas; by sixty of them, day and night [are formed]. / And of the inhalations and exhalations arising from Sadāśiva / there is no reckoning; therefore he is remembered as imperishable.

Others also who depart endowed with knowledge of Brahman / also become imperishable; this that I have spoken is the truth.

The seers said: / If it is so, O son of Sūta, here Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Maheśvara, / when their own hundred years are completed, go to destruction without doubt.

Then how is it that the learned proclaim liberation / for human beings who are short-lived in the mortal realm, O son of Sūta?

Surely their doctrine concerning the path to liberation is false!

Sūta said: / Time is without beginning or end, and devoid of number. / Innumerable Brahmās, Viṣṇus, and Maheśvaras have attained liberation

when their own hundred years were completed, like grains of sand. / If those human beings possess faith arising from knowledge of Brahman by their own reckoning, / their liberation will take place without a doubt.

Just as these gadflies, mosquitoes, and worms of humans / are born and die and are not counted anywhere, / so mortals on the surface of the earth are to be regarded by Indra and the others.

And just as mortals stand in the place of insects to the gods, / so also the gods are to be known [in relation] to Brahmā, whose birth is from the unmanifest.

Just as the gods stand in the place of insects to Brahmā, / so Brahmā too stands in the place of an insect to Viṣṇu.

Just as the Grandfather stands in the place of an insect to Viṣṇu, / so he is to be recognized [in relation] to Śiva and Śakti, O best of brahmins.

Just as Viṣṇu is to be known as a worm to those two, O best of brahmins, / so those two are to be known as having the form of worms in relation to Sadāśiva.

And thus, through various sacrifices with a mind purified by faith, / they go beyond through knowledge of Brahman originating from Sadāśiva.

By sacrifices such as the Agniṣṭoma performed with full sacrificial fees, / they go to heaven for that purpose and, having enjoyed diverse pleasures,

they return to the surface of the earth when their merit is exhausted. / Having attained the highest state through knowledge of Brahman, there is no rebirth.

Therefore, with every effort one should practice that. / After many births, one gradually attains liberation.

A particle of that knowledge attained in one birth / becomes doubled in the second, and tripled in the third.

Thus it increases by one always, birth after birth.

The seers said: / How does the attainment of the knowledge of Brahman arise for mortals? / Tell us all this, if you know, O son of Sūta.

Sūta said: / What power is mine to speak on the knowledge arising in mortals? / He who does not know it himself, how can he tell another?

Only the instruction that was given to me by my father, O best of brahmins, / arising from the knowledge of Brahman, that I will declare to you.

In the sacred field born of Hāṭakeśvara, there is indeed an auspicious pair of sacred fords, / constructed by two maidens, granting knowledge of Brahman to men.

It was created by two maidens—a brahmin girl and a śūdra girl. / Whoever performs a ritual ablution in both of them on the eighth or fourteenth day,

and then worships with devotion the famous pairs of magical sandals, / well-hidden, situated in the middle of a pit, worshiped by the maiden,

for him, at the end of a year, knowledge of Brahman arises. / And they were placed by Śakti for the increase of the vision of herself,

bringing the bliss of knowledge of Brahman to people who desire liberation. / My father went there, and from that he remained endowed with knowledge.

By his command I went there, remained for a year, / and worshiped the pair of sandals; then knowledge became established [in me].

Whatever foremost Purāṇa is heard and established in the world, / present and future, all that I know, O brahmins.

By his favor it is undoubtedly established here as authoritative, / except for the recitation of the Vedas alone, since sūtahood is in me.

Even of that, I know the entire meaning like the sage Bhartṛyajña. / Therefore, go to that very place if liberation is your purpose.

"What is the use of these sacrificial sessions that bestow heaven, which cause rebirth? / Go and worship those sandals that grant perfection to men, / by which, at the end of a year, knowledge of Brahman is born."

The seers said: / "Bravo, bravo, O highly fortunate one! Truly a great teaching has been given; / by it we have all been carried across the ocean of worldly existence.

We too will go there when this twelve-year sacrificial session / is concluded, without a doubt; and all of us have made our resolve."

Thus ends the one hundred and ninety-fourth chapter, named 'The Description of the māhātmya of the Sandals situated in the Garta-kṣetra of the Two Kumārikā Sacred Fords for the Sake of Attaining Knowledge of Brahman', in the māhātmya of the Hāṭakeśvara Sacred Field, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [section], in the Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.