Skandapurana 6.3.161

Chapter 161

The glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, O great king, one should go to the unexcelled Sarpatīrtha, / where great serpents became perfected by performing austerity, O Yudhiṣṭhira:

Vāsuki, the terrible Takṣaka, Sārpa, Airāvata likewise, / the highly fortunate Kāliya, Karkoṭaka, and Dhanañjaya;

Śaṅkhacūḍa of great majesty, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Vṛkodara, / Kulika, and Vāmana, and those who are their sons and grandsons.

Having performed very difficult austerity at that most holy sacred ford, / they enjoy various pleasures and disport themselves at will.

Śaṅkara formerly proclaimed that he who bathes at that sacred ford / and makes libations to the ancestors and gods gains the fruit of the Vājapeya sacrifice.

For men who have bathed at Sarpatīrtha, O Bhārata, / there is never any fear in the world from species of snakes and scorpions.

When he dies, he goes to Bhogavatī, worshipped by the great serpents; / surrounded by snake maidens, he becomes a lord of great enjoyment.

On the eighth day in the dark fortnight of the month of Mārgaśīrṣa, / having fasted and become pure, one should cover the liṅga with sesame seeds / and worship it with fragrant pastes and flowers according to one's wealth.

Having performed this according to the rule, bowing down, one should ask for forgiveness. / Hear the fruit that is declared for him, O ruler of men:

As many as the sesame seeds are there, and the leaves, flowers, and fruits, / for that much desired time he rejoices in the city of heaven, O king.

Then, falling from heaven, he is born in a stainless family; / handsome and fortunate, he becomes master of ten million pieces of wealth.

Thus ends the one hundred and sixty-first chapter, named the Description of the Greatness of Sarpatīrtha, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].