Skandapurana 5.84

The seers said: / That which was declared by you: by Viṣṇu, god of gods, / having found Mādhavī as his sister who had arrived in another birth,

"I will make her, who has a horse's face, possess a beautiful face through austerity"— / how was she made [so] by him, and how was the austerity performed? / Tell everything in detail, for our curiosity is indeed great.

Sūta said: / Having heard that message of Nārada originating from the gods, / Viṣṇu, having gone together with the gods, made a firm deliberation in counsel.

In order to relieve the burden [of the earth] and to slay the Dānavas, / the glorious Hari then, at the end of the Dvāpara [yuga], in the house of Vasudeva,

the god who destroys the arrogance of the Daityas, was born in the womb of Devakī. / Likewise, another wife whom he had was named Rohiṇī;

in her was born the plow-wielder named Balabhadra, endowed with majesty. / And a third, who was the beloved of Vasudeva, was named Suprabhā;

in her was born that Mādhavī, possessing the form of a horse-faced one. / Seeing that daughter born with a deformed appearance, Suprabhā, / together with Vasudeva, fell into the deepest sorrow.

Then all those Yādavas, having performed rites of pacification and nourishment, / terrified, said, "May there be well-being, well-being in our family!"

Thus she attained youth, and likewise was accompanied by sorrow; / seeing that horse-faced woman, no one chose her [in marriage].

And then, Lord Viṣṇu, knowing that sister to be so, / and likewise his mother and father to be accompanied by sorrow,

taking her, went swiftly, accompanied by Baladeva, / to the sacred field born of Hāṭakeśvara, in order to perform supreme austerity thereafter.

Devoted completely to sacrifices, he pleased Brahmā / by various vows, gifts, and offerings to satisfy brahmins.

Then, at the end of a year, Brahmā attained satisfaction with that wielder of the Śārṅga bow, / and said, "I am a giver of boons; ask for what is desired."

Viṣṇu said: / "O god, this sister of mine was indeed born with a horse's face; / by your grace may she become one with a beautiful face; this is my wish."

Glorious Brahmā said: / "This virtuous woman will become beautiful-faced by my grace, / renowned by the name Subhadrā, the mother of a hero, beloved to her husband.

Whatever person will worship her here in this form with devotion— / her, O Viṣṇu, together with you, and likewise with this plow-wielder—

on the twelfth day of the month of Māgha, with fragrant substances, flowers, and unguents, / he too shall obtain whatever is in his heart, there is no doubt in this.

Whatever woman, abandoned by her husband or barren, endowed with devotion, / will worship her on the third day, O Keśava,

she will become endowed with good sons, fortunate, happy, / always accompanied by sovereignty, and rich in all virtues."

Having spoken thus, the four-faced one ceased thereafter. / Vāsudeva too, with a joyful soul, went to the city of Dvāravatī,

taking that large-eyed woman whose face was like the orb of the moon, / accompanied by Baladeva, having taken leave of the grandfather [Brahmā].

Sūta said: / Thus, O brahmins, that Mādhavī, having assumed an auspicious form, / descended upon the surface of the earth, afflicted by the curse of Lakṣmī.

The son of Pāṇḍu, Pārtha, married her who had a charming smile; / to her was born a heroic son renowned as Abhimanyu.

All this regarding the birth of Mādhavī has been told to you, / O best of brahmins, in connection with the story of the god named Suparṇa.

And whatever mortal recites this or hears it endowed with devotion, / that man is freed from the sin arising on that one day. / Thus ends the eighty-fourth chapter, named 'Description of the Attainment of the State of Subhadrā after Liberation from the Curse Given by Padmā through the Practice of Austerity by Śrī Kṛṣṇa for Mādhavī the Horse-Faced One', in the Suparṇākhyatīrtha Māhātmya, in the Hāṭakeśvara Sacred Field Māhātmya, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [part] in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses, the glorious Skandapurāṇa.