Skandapurana 5.246

Paijavana said: / How is Śrī in the form of tulasī, and Pārvatī in the bilva tree? / Tell this truth in detail, O sage, O lord!

Gālava said:

Long ago, in a war between the gods and the asuras, the dānavas, arrogant with strength, / dreadful and extremely ferocious, slew the gods in battle.

Agitated by fear, the gods went to Brahmā for refuge. / Led by Bṛhaspati, they praised and bowed to the Father,

and stood with folded hands. The Grandfather said to them: / 'For what reason have you come to our abode with pale faces?

Let the reason be told quickly, you who are accompanied by Agni, Indra, and the Vasus.' / The gods said: / 'We have been defeated in battle by the daityas of wondrous deeds, O Father.

All of us have been overpowered; therefore we have come to you for refuge. / Save us who have come for refuge, O god of the chiefs of the gods!'

Hearing that, the blessed one, Brahmā, the grandfather of the worlds, said: / 'I cannot take the side of any person.

I shall tell a means before you who are devoted to true dharma. / Once a very great dispute arose among the devotees of Śiva / with the devotees of Keśava, out of a mutual desire to triumph. / Then the blessed Rudra, while his devotees were watching,

effecting unity with the hosts of Viṣṇu, assumed a most wondrous form. / He then bore the name Hari-Hara by means of the two halves of his body: / / Hara was one half of the body, and Viṣṇu was the other half. / On one side were the marks of Viṣṇu, and on the other side were the marks of Hara.

On one side was Garuḍa, and on the other was the bull. / On the left, the body had the color of a raincloud, resembling a mass of stone,

while on the right it became white as camphor at that time. / The universe was equal to the unity of both; the universe existed as unity.

Those of discordant views who obstructed the meaning of the Śruti and Smṛti were destroyed; / the heretics and the sophists all fell into astonishment.

Abandoning their respective paths, they walked the road to liberation. / On Mandara, the best of mountains, that form is constantly praised

by the Pramathas and other hosts, and it remains motionless even today. / It is the agent of creation, maintenance, and dissolution; it is the seed of the universe, endless,

conjoined of Maheśa and Viṣṇu, remembered as the destroyer of sins, / to be meditated upon by yogins, ever to be worshipped, the support of reality, transcending the gunas.

Even those seeking liberation, having meditated upon it, attain the supreme abode. / Having meditated on it especially during Cāturmāsya, a mortal indeed becomes more than human.

For those who go there, that god will provide.' / Having spoken thus, the blessed one vanished right there before them.

Those gods too, headed by Agni, set out for Mount Mandara. / They wandered here and there, searching for Maheśvara,

Pārvatī residing in the bilva tree, and Lakṣmī in the tulasī. / In the beginning, this entire universe first came to be composed of trees.

These trees are exceedingly exalted, all born from portions of the gods. / Merely by touching them, one is freed from all sins,

which especially during Cāturmāsya take away heaps of great sins. / When the gods saw the lord of the three worlds by that very means,

then a voice originating from the sky spoke truly to the gods: / 'The Lord, out of compassion for all beings, has taken refuge in a tree.

When Cāturmāsya has arrived, he who shows mercy to all beings [is there]. / Therefore the aśvattha tree should always be served, especially on Saturdays.

By daily touching the aśvattha, sin is dispersed in a thousand ways. / For those who with devotion make an offering with milk mixed with sesame seeds,

or who perform watering, there will be satisfaction for their ancestors. / Merely by seeing the tree, sin is destroyed.

The pippala tree, worshipped, meditated upon, seen, or served, / serves to destroy sins and diseases, especially during Cāturmāsya. / The aśvattha, worshipped and watered, brings happiness to all beings.

It removes all illnesses and carries away heaps of all sins. / Those men who even recite the names born of the aśvattha tree

have no fear on the path to the realm of Yama. / And he who causes it to be well anointed with saffron and sandalwood

will be free from the three kinds of suffering and will become an attendant in Vaikuṇṭha. / 'O pippala, beloved of Hari, bring to dissolution bad dreams,

evil thoughts, defeats from violent fevers, and sins!' / Those gods who worship the pippala with this mantra,

to them the King of Dharma becomes obedient to their word. / The aśvattha, even by its name, is declared to bestow knowledge upon men.

And when heard [of], it removes sin up to the end of life from birth onward. / The veneration of the aśvattha is meritorious, especially during Cāturmāsya.
While the Lord is asleep, having entered the interior of the tree, the blessed sovereign Lord / dwells there, as if drinking up all the water residing upon the earth.

Water is Viṣṇu, by virtue of being water; Viṣṇu himself is the great essence. / Therefore, Viṣṇu residing in the tree is the destroyer of sins during Cāturmāsya.

Viṣṇu, present in all living beings, indeed nourishes the universe. / Likewise, whoever bows to Viṣṇu present in the aśvattha does not go to hell.

Whoever, being restrained, plants an aśvattha upon the earth— / thousands of his sins vanish instantly.

Among all trees, the aśvattha is pure and endowed with auspiciousness; / when planted and meditated upon, it grants liberation; in Cāturmāsya, it destroys sins.

Placing a foot upon the aśvattha produces [the sin of] killing a brahmin. / Having hacked it without cause, one is surely cooked in hell.

Viṣṇu is constantly situated at the root, and Keśava in the trunk; / Nārāyaṇa is in the branches, and the Blessed Lord Hari in the leaves.

Acyuta is in the fruit, without doubt, accompanied by all the gods. / Especially during Cāturmāsya, one who worships this tree partakes of liberation.

Therefore, with every effort, constantly honoring the aśvattha— / the sin arisen that day departs from the man who performs it with devotion.

He alone is Viṣṇu, indeed the tree incarnate, whose meritorious root is served by great-souled ones; / whose shelter destroys thousands of sins, yielding all desires and abounding in virtues for humankind.

Thus ends the two hundred and forty-seventh chapter, entitled “Description of the Greatness of the Aśvattha,” in the Paijavana narrative within the Māhātmya of Cāturmāsya, in the dialogue between Brahmā and Nārada within the narrative of the Sleeper on Śeṣa, in the Māhātmya of the Hāṭakeśvara Sacred Field, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [section] of the Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses. // 247