Skandapurana 6.3.141

Chapter 141

The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then one should go, O protector of the earth, to the unsurpassed Tāpeśvara, / where that doe, frightened by a hunter, attained perfection, O lord of men.

Having cast her limbs into the water, she went to the sky; / and the hunter, his mind filled with wonder having seen that female deer,

abandoned his bow along with the arrow and undertook supreme austerity. / Austerity was performed by the hunter for a thousand divine years.

Then, after time had passed, Maheśvara was pleased: / "Choose a boon, O great hunter, whatever pleases your mind."

The hunter said: / "If you are pleased, O Lord of Gods, if a boon is to be given to me, / grant me residence by your side, O Mahādeva."

Īśvara said: / "Let it be so for you, O hunter, as the boon was desired by you." / Having spoken thus, Mahādeva, the God of gods, vanished. / When the god had disappeared, having established Maheśvara,

and having worshipped according to the rule, the hunter went from there to heaven. / From that time on, that sacred ford has been renowned in the three worlds.

Born from the hunter's repentance (anutāpa), it is heard of as Tāpeśvara. / Whoever bathes in that sacred ford and thoroughly worships Śaṅkara

attains the world of Śiva; so Maheśvara said to me. / Those men who have bathed in the waters of the Narmadā at the sacred ford Tāpeśvara

are freed from the threefold miseries; no doubt should be entertained here, / especially on the eighth, fourteenth, and third [tithis].

one should regularly perform ritual ablution for the pacification of all sins. // 141.11

Thus ends the one hundred and forty-first chapter, entitled 'Description of the Māhātmya of Tāpeśvaratīrtha,' in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.