Skandapurana 5.236

Nārada said: / When should the injunctions and prohibitions be undertaken in the presence of Viṣṇu? / Having drunk the nectar of your speech, there is no satiety for me.

Brahmā said: / On the day of the summer solstice, having worshipped Viṣṇu with devotion, / an arghya offering should be given with fruits, with auspicious, praised jambū fruits.

This name of Jambūdvīpa arises from that fruit. / With this mantra, O best of brahmins, by those who are fully restrained in faith and duty:

'If death should come to me anywhere within six months, / then my self has been surrendered by me to Vāsudeva.'

Thus the arghya [is offered] with the mantra. / Then the injunctions and prohibitions should be accepted with devotion before Hari, / when Cāturmāsya has arrived, bringing great joy to all the worlds.

The injunction to be performed is the Vedic injunction; prohibition is regarded as restraint. / Both the injunction and the prohibition are indeed Viṣṇu himself.

Therefore, by every effort Janārdana is indeed to be served: / discourse on Viṣṇu, worship of Viṣṇu, meditation on Viṣṇu, and likewise bowing to Viṣṇu.

Whoever does everything out of love for Hari partakes of liberation; / eternal Viṣṇu is the truth, the embodiment of the ordinances of class and life-stage.

Especially during the Cāturmāsya, the destruction of the miseries of birth and the like [occurs]; / Hari alone is to be attained through vows; one should perform the vow with one's body. / This body must be purified by austerity while the Lord, the treasure of austerity, is asleep.

Nārada said: / What vow, what austerity is prescribed, O Brahmā? Tell [me] in detail / what is to be done by me while the Lord is asleep, which yields great fruit when performed.

Brahmā said: / Know the vow to be Viṣṇu's vow, accompanied by devotion to Viṣṇu; / and austerity to be abiding in righteousness, or else [performing] penances such as the kṛcchra.

Listen, I shall first describe to you the greatness of the vow: / the vow of celibacy is the essence, the supreme vow among vows.

Celibacy is the essence of austerity; celibacy bears great fruit. / In all ritual actions indeed one should augment celibacy.

By the power of celibacy, fierce austerity proceeds. / There is no supreme means of righteousness higher than celibacy.

Especially during Cāturmāsya, while the Lord is asleep, it is superior in virtues; / always understand this great vow in the world, O twice-born!

Whoever performs this work dedicated to Nārāyaṇa is not tainted. / They speak of three hundred and sixty days in a year;

there the Lord Nārāyaṇa is worshipped by vow-observers: / 'O Lord, I shall perform such-and-such good deed'—[such is] the resolve.

They declare that vow which one undertakes while the Lord is asleep to be superior in virtue: / offering oblations in fire, devotion to brahmins, faith, an auspicious mind set on righteousness,

association with the good, worship of Viṣṇu, speaking the truth, compassion in the heart, / uprightness, sweet speech, and continuous delight in good conduct,

recitation of the Veda, non-stealing, non-violence, modesty, patience, self-restraint, / absence of greed, absence of anger, freedom from delusion, absence of possessiveness, and dispassion,

knowledge dedicated to the rites of scripture, the mind's course offered to Kṛṣṇa— / for whom these vows are established, O best of the knowers of the Brahman,

that man is called liberated while living; he is never tainted by sins. / A vow performed even once always bears great fruit.

Especially during Cāturmāsya, the practice of celibacy and the like [is fruitful]. / For those men whose Cāturmāsya has passed without any vow,

their righteousness has been proclaimed in vain by the virtuous knowers of reality. / The practice of vows bears great fruit for all classes indeed.

Even a little [vow] observed in Cāturmāsya, my child, bestows happiness. / Viṣṇu is seen everywhere by men intent on the observance of vows.

When Cāturmāsya has arrived, one should maintain it with effort.

Worship Viṣṇu, whose form consists of the distinctions of brahmins, fire, sacred fords, and the Vedas, the unborn, the radiant, / by whose grace one stands on the great tree of liberation and will not experience the distress born of the sun of worldly existence.

Thus ends the two hundred and thirty-seventh chapter, named 'Description of the Greatness of Vows in the Greatness of Cāturmāsya,' in the conversation between Brahmā and Nārada, in the account of the one who sleeps on Śeṣa, in the glorification of the sacred field of Hāṭakeśvara, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [part] in the venerable Skanda Purāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].