Skandapurana 5.197

Sūta said: / At that very time, the lord of Daśārṇa / came to that place for the sake of wedding Ratnāvatī. 1

Having heard there the news concerning Ratnāvatī, / he felt supreme aversion and set out toward his own city. 2

Hearing that the king had departed toward his own city, Ānarta / then followed behind him in order to turn him back. 3

And reaching him, he said: "Why have you departed, O king, / without taking the hand of my daughter?" 4

The lord of Daśārṇa said: / "This daughter of yours has been defiled; she is devoid of maidenhood, / whose lower lip was drunk by another, and likewise her breasts rubbed. 5

Your daughter has acquired the designation 'remarried woman' (punarbhū). / If a remarried woman should ever, somehow, give birth to a son, 6

he undoubtedly brings down ten ancestors and ten descendants, / and himself as the twenty-first. 7

Therefore, I will not choose your daughter, O ruler of men!" / Having spoken thus without courtesy, the lord of Daśārṇa then, 8

although entreated with various [gifts] headed by elephants, horses, and chariots, / disregarded the king and set out toward his own city. 9

Then Ānarta, reaching the house of Mṛgāvatī, was deeply distressed; / and, filled with sorrow, he reported to his wife, his daughter, and his ministers / what had been said by that king. 10

They said: "There are countless kings on the surface of the earth, / endowed with beauty, possessed of youth, and equipped with elephants, horses, and chariots. 11

Give your maiden to one among them, O lord! / Do not fix your mind on despair and fall under the sway of sorrow!" 12

Ānarta, hearing that sorrowful speech of theirs, / then with a delighted heart spoke to all of them, headed by the ministers, 13

and to that maiden standing there, with exceedingly gentle words of conciliation: / "Daughter, all the kings depicted in pictures have been seen by you. 14

From among them, choose another king, O lovely one, / who brings satisfaction to your heart upon entering your sight." 15

Ratnāvatī said: / "I shall never choose another husband / other than the lord of Daśārṇa; hear the reason for this: 16

Kings speak but once; brahmins speak but once; / maidens are given away but once—these three occur only once. 17

Knowing this, father, you should not give me to another king, / for then this righteousness would not be eternal." 18

Ānarta said: / "You were promised to the lord of Daśārṇa by me by mere word of mouth; / he did not clasp your hand in the presence of brahmins, fire, and the preceptor. 19

Then how has he become your husband, my daughter? Tell me!" 20

Ratnāvatī said: / "Because, father, a deed is first conceived in the mind, / thereafter it is uttered in speech, and then it is performed in action. 21

Therefore, this self of mine was indeed formerly given to him in my mind. / And by speech, O lord, I was likewise given to him by you. / How then could he not be my husband? Speak, if you think [otherwise].

As such, I shall practice austerity, keeping the vow of maidenhood. / I shall take no other husband; this is the resolve I have made.

Hearing those dread words, her mother, Mṛgāvatī, / with eyes filled with tears, dejected, spoke this speech:

"Do not, daughter, rashly undertake austerity in any way! / You are a girl of delicate limbs, accustomed always to comfort alone.

How can you be capable of performing austerity, O blameless one, / subsisting on roots and fruits, wearing ragged bark garments?

Therefore, I shall give you [in marriage] to some foremost king.

This brahmin girl, your most cherished companion, / remains in maidenhood awaiting your wedding.

To whichever king's mansion you go in marriage, / she will become the wife of that king's family priest."

Ratnāvatī said: / "Never speak such words again / on my account, if you desire my life, wishing [well] for your daughter.

If, however, out of obstinacy, you create an obstacle to my austerity,

then I shall abandon my body after consuming deadly poison, / or I shall cut out my tongue, or enter into the water."

Having thus made her resolve and spoken to her mother at that time,

she then addressed that maiden, her cherished brahmin friend, / after folding her hands in supplication and embracing her affectionately:

"Go to your father's mansion, O auspicious one, dismissed by me, / so that your father may give you to a noble Nāgara brahmin.

Forgive whatever harsh word I may have spoken at any time; / and whatever was spoken by you to me, I have certainly forgiven it."

The brahmin woman said: / "At eight years she is Gaurī; at nine years, Rohiṇī; / at ten years she is a kanyā; beyond that, she has reached puberty.

My girlhood is gone, O fair-faced one, in association with you; / my sixteenth year has arrived, accompanied by the condition of womanhood.

No Nāgara here will take my hand [in marriage], / knowing the sense of the traditional law that is proclaimed, O fair-faced one:

'A pitiless man who marries a girl who has reached puberty / causes ten generations [of ancestors] to fall, having obtained offspring from her.

And a pitiless father who gives away a girl who has reached puberty / undoubtedly causes ten previous and ten future [generations] to fall.'

Therefore, I shall perform austerity together with you, O auspicious one. / I have no need of a father, nor of a mother in any way."

Sūta said: / Having thus made their resolve, O best of brahmins, those two maidens / went to the place where the great sage Bhartṛyajña was present in person.

He dwelt at a delightful site, filled with all sacred fords and auspicious. / By the power of his austerity, anger was never seen there

in any mortal or animal born of a beastly womb. / Mongooses played with serpents, and cats with mice,

deer with leopards, and crows with owls. / Having gone there to Bhartṛyajña as he sat comfortably, those auspicious [maidens], / standing endowed with modesty and with folded hands, addressed [him]:

The brahmin woman said: / "I have come with this friend, a princess, / to the proximity of your feet for the sake of austerity; so tell us the rules of austerity.

Speak, so that I may perform it entirely, O wise one!"

Bhartṛyajña said: / "I shall explain to you each rule for the practice of austerity, / by which liberation is attained—what need to speak of the realm of the thirty [gods]?

The cāndrāyaṇa penances, the kṛcchra penances, and likewise the sāṃtapanas; / eating only at the sixth mealtime, and also on alternate days;

the brahmakūrca, fasting for three nights, eating once a day, and eating only unasked food: / all these gateways of austerity were created by the Creator.

They must be performed according to one's capacity, free from attachment and aversion. / And the desired fruit of all [these penances] must be sought, O daughter; / then one obtains the perfection that is ever set in one's mind.

When sameness toward enemy and friend, / and likewise toward stone and jewel, arises in the mind, then one may attain liberation.

He who, having taken up the marks [of an ascetic], then becomes prone to anger— / for him all of that is in vain, just like an oblation poured into ashes."

Sūta said: / Having agreed with 'So be it,' that brahmin woman, accompanied by / that Ratnāvatī, then went to a certain reservoir of water

filled with clear water and adorned with clusters of lotuses. / Then she undertook the cāndrāyaṇa, the first vow of austerity.

Then she performed the kṛcchra vow, and then the sāṃtapana vow; / and she ate only at the sixth mealtime for three years.

Then she fasted for three nights [at a time] for up to three years; / and by fasts on alternate days she spent three years.

In winter, that female ascetic stood in the midst of water; / in summer, that glorious woman practiced the five-fire penance.

When the rainy season arrived, the virtuous woman remained without shelter, / meditating day and night upon the god of gods, Janārdana.

Whatever vow that pious brahmin woman performed first, / the king's daughter, having reached another reservoir of water, performed it [too], / filled with supreme joy at that time, O best of brahmins.

Then she subsisted on fruits for a hundred and fifty years. / Afterward, she remained for just as long, eating [only] fallen leaves.

And then she subsisted on water for six hundred years; / then she fed on air for a thousand years.

In proportion as that maiden performed tapas, O best of brahmins, / in that same measure the incomparable increase of her fiery energy occurred.

At that very time, however, the Lord, crowned with the crescent moon,

accompanied by Gaurī, his mind pleased, came within her sight. / With a voice deep as a thundercloud, he then spoke [these] words:

"Child, cease from tapas at my word. / Ask for whatever your heart desires, so that I may grant you all."

The brahmin girl said: / "My desire is just this: that you have been seen by me, O Śaṃkara, / for even in a dream, O God, your darśana is difficult for mortals to attain."

The Lord said: / "My darśana may not in any way be in vain, O great ascetic lady; / therefore, choose a boon—blessing upon you—so that I may bestow it."

The brahmin girl said: / "This good female friend of mine, virtuous, an illustrious king’s daughter, / renowned by the name Ratnāvatī, is dearer [to me] even than life.

Though born in a śūdra womb, she performed tapas equal to mine. / If she ceases her tapas, then without doubt, / O Lord of the universe, I shall cease mine today.

Out of affection for her, my husband was abandoned by me, O Lord of the gods. / Therefore, O God, grant her the boon that rests in her heart."

Sūta said: / Hearing her words, the Lord crowned with the crescent moon / addressed that princess with a voice deep as a thundercloud: / "Child, at my word you ought to abandon your tapas today.

Choose a boon, O auspicious lady, that has constantly dwelled in your heart; / even what should not be given, I will now grant to you, O lovely lady."

Ratnāvatī said: / "This sacred reservoir of water, adorned with clusters of lotuses,

where this virtuous brahmin girl has constantly stood in tapas, / let this tīrtha obtain renown by her name.

Whoever performs a ritual ablution here, endowed with supreme faith, / let his dwelling always be in heaven, O God of gods!

And let my own [tīrtha] be known by my name as Śūdrā, / and let it attain a power equal to that tīrtha.

May great tapas be performed perpetually by both of us in maidenhood, / and may you, the foremost of gods, be worshipped [by us] with speech, mind, and deeds."

At that very time, bursting through the surface of the earth, / a Māheśvara liṅga, resembling the sun, came forth, O brahmins.

Then the God, Maheśvara himself, said to the two of them, / pleased with their excellent tapas, respectful, affectionate toward his devotees:

"This pair of tīrthas shall become famous even in the three worlds, / yours by the name Śūdrī, and [the other named after] your friend Brāhmaṇī.

Whoever, having bathed in both these tīrthas with faith, / taking lotuses from you and clear water from her, / shall bathe and worship this liṅga of mine,

and then [worship it] with lotuses on the fourteenth day of the bright fortnight on a Monday, / when the month of Caitra has arrived, he will become long-lived,

freed from all sins, even if he were a perpetrator of great sin."

Having spoken thus, that Lord then vanished. / And both female friends remained there constantly engaged in tapas,

free from old age and death for up to a hundred kalpas; / even today the two of them are seen in the sky in the form of stars.

From that time forward, that pair of tīrthas became famous on the earth’s surface. / Having come from afar, a man who takes a bath in both of them,

and then worships that liṅga, goes to the abode of the gods; / even if he is yoked to great heinous sins, by its power, without doubt.

Meanwhile, in the mortal world, the performance of righteousness was lost— / that which is produced by sacrifice and gift, and that which arises from worship of the gods.

Likewise, the entire heaven was filled with mortals contending for rivalry / alongside the gods seated in aerial chariots and attended by multitudes of apsarases.

At that very time, the King of Dharma came / to where Brahmā, accompanied by the sound of the Vedas, resided in Brahmaloka.

Miserable and distressed, throwing down two leaves before him— / one arisen from sin, the other arisen from righteousness,

the one written by Citra and the other by Vicitra—he said: / "In the kṣetra born of Hāṭakeśvara, there is a pair of divine tīrthas:

one named Śūdrā, the other named Brāhmaṇī and adorned with lotuses; / and there is also a holy, great Māheśvara liṅga there.

By the power of those three, all mortals, / even when yoked to sin, go to the abode of the thirty [gods].

My hells, Raurava and all the others, have become empty.

No one performs sacrifice, nor giving, nor the offering of water / to the gods, the ancestors, and especially to human beings.

Therefore, all this office derived from you has been relinquished by me; / appoint someone else there, who is most capable.

Both these leaves of mine have become void of authority." / Hearing that, the lotus-born [Brahmā] summoned Śatakratu and said:

"Having gone to the mortal world as swiftly as possible, O Śakra, at my word, / in the kṣetra born of Hāṭakeśvara, the incomparable pair of tīrthas—

the one named Śūdrī and that called Brāhmaṇī—and the incomparable liṅga / situated there, destroy them quickly by causing a shower of dust."

Sūta said: / Hearing that, Śakra quickly went to the earth's surface then, / and filled those two tīrthas and the liṅga with dust.

Even today, in this Kali age, having taken good clay from both, / bathed, and applied a tilaka, it serves for purification from all sins.

When the day of the fourteenth falls on a Monday, / whoever performs a śrāddha with the two [clays] endowed with supreme faith— / what need has he of a śrāddha at Gayā? Thus spoke Manu Svāyambhuva.

All this has been recounted to you, best of brahmins, which I was asked, / how that woman became a brahmin woman and how the other became a Śūdra woman.

And whoever hears this with devotion or recites it, best of brahmins, / he too is freed from the sin born on that day; of this there is no doubt.

Thus, what man has not attained perfection from the worship of that liṅga, / and has become long-lived as none other is known to be here?

Thus ends the one hundred and ninety-eighth chapter, entitled 'Description of the Māhātmya of the Two Sacred Fords of the Śūdra Woman and the Brahmin Woman,' in the Māhātmya of the Sacred Field of Hāṭakeśvara, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [part] of the eighty-one-thousand-verse collection of the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa.