Skandapurana 6.3.168

Chapter 168

Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said: / On the southern bank of the Narmadā is excellent Aṅkūreśvara, / a tīrtha endowed with all virtues, celebrated throughout the three worlds,

where a great rākṣasa attained perfection after worshipping Maheśvara, / Śaṃkara, the life-breath of the universe, who takes away [afflictions] by mere remembrance.

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / Who was that rākṣasa, O best of the twice-born? What was his name, and in whose lineage [was he born]? / Tell me all this in detail, O sinless one.

Men who are blinded by the darkness of ignorance and commit sins / perceive the moving and unmoving universe through people like you who serve as lamps.

Having heard the words of the son of Dharma, Mārkaṇḍeya, the lord of sages, / smiled and recounted that sin-destroying story.

Mārkaṇḍeya said: / There was a mind-born son of Brahmā named Pulastya, O king, / an expounder of the Vedas and treatises, like another Vedhas incarnate.

The daughter of Tṛṇabindu was the wife of that lord. / Through righteous union with her, a high-minded son was born,

because the Vedas and Itihāsas, along with the six limbs, padas, and kramas, / found rest [in him], Brahmā gave him the name Viśravas.

Then, at some time, the great sage Bharadvāja / gave his own daughter with joy to Viśravas, O king.

He sported with her as Maghavan does with Paulomī, / with supreme joy, O king—he, the brahmin who best understood the Vedas.

Then, in the course of time, a son endowed with all filial virtues / was born to Viśravas, O king, celebrated by the name Vaiśravaṇa.

He, having undertaken the vow of silence from childhood, O Yudhiṣṭhira, / and granting freedom from fear to all beings, practiced a supreme observance.

Mahādeva and Brahmā, along with the brahmin seers, were pleased with him; / Īśvara, having granted [him] friendship, and Brahmā [having granted] the state of the giver of wealth, departed.

“And you shall be the fourth along with Yama, Indra, and Varuṇa”; / having said this, Brahmā also quickly departed, having granted the desired status of a world protector.

Then, after that time, a rākṣasī named Kaikasī, / having left Pātāla and the earth, desired Viśravas as her husband.

Then Rāvaṇa was born as her son, O best of the Bharatas, / and Kumbhakarṇa, the great rākṣasa, and righteous Vibhīṣaṇa.

Kumbha and Vikumbha were the two sons of Kumbhakarṇa, / mighty, very heroic, and eminent, O best of men.

Aṅkūra, the foremost of rākṣasas, was the great son of Kumbha. / Seeing virtuous Vibhīṣaṇa thus, that best of rākṣasas,

having attained youth and knowing the rākṣasa grandfather, / fell into deep despondency and performed very great austerity.

Having gone to the south, west, east, and north ocean, / in due course to the Narmadā, Aṅkūra, the lord of rākṣasas,

performed very great austerity, indeed, for a divine hundred years. / Then Mahādeva, the conqueror of enemy citadels in visible form, was pleased.

The bull-bannered Lord invited the rākṣasa to choose a boon: / “Choose a boon, may good betide you; I shall grant it to you, O man of firm vows.”

The rākṣasa spoke words to Maheśvara, the god of gods, / seeing before him the giver of boons and bowing again and again:

“If you are pleased, Mahādeva, and are the giver of boons, O lord of gods, / grant me immortality, which is difficult for all beings to obtain.

And established here in this name of mine by this boon, O destroyer of Tripura, / you ought to be always present in this tīrtha.”

Īśvara said: / “As long as you follow the doctrine of Vibhīṣaṇa and serve righteousness / with a firm mind, so long shall this be.”

Having spoken thus, the God worshipped by all deities departed / by an aerial chariot having the color of the sun to Kailāsa, the mountain of the earth.

When the God had vanished from sight, having bathed and sipped water according to the rules, / he established the excellent [liṅga] Aṅkūreśvara, O king of kings,

with perfumes, flowers, and incenses, with clothes and ornaments, / with banners, fly-whisks, parasols, and auspicious cries of victory and the like.

Having worshipped the lord of gods with delightful and abundant hymns of praise, / the rākṣasa went to the abode where King Vibhīṣaṇa was.

Duly honored by him with gifts, respect, and reverence, / and treated with brotherly affection, he dwelt [there] with supreme joy.

Whoever bathes in that tīrtha and worships the Supreme Lord / named Aṅkūreśvara obtains the fruit of a horse sacrifice.

Beginning from Māṇḍavyakhāta up to the auspicious confluence / of the Revā and the Āmalakī is the divine sacred field belonging to Maheśvara.

To the west of Māṇḍavyakhāta is that tīrtha called Aṅkūreśvara. / A man who bathes in that tīrtha, pure and with controlled mind,

having carefully sipped water for the twilight prayer, and then having performed japa, O Bhārata, / having offered libations to the ancestors, gods, and mortals, O bull of the Bharatas, —

wearing his clothes, with wet garments, having maintained silence, restrained, / or fasting according to rule on the eighth or fourteenth day, a man

who performs worship, O king, hear the fruit of his merit: / more than a hundred yojanas of sacred fords and temples,

all those are regarded as seen [by him]; thereby he is freed from sins. / And whatever gift is offered at that sacred ford, dedicated to the deity,

after performing ritual ablution according to rule to a worthy recipient, that is declared imperishable. / Its fruit is said to be ten times greater than a fire sacrifice; greater still from muttered prayer;

three times greater from fasting, and four times from ritual ablution. / But one who undertakes renunciation or casts away his life,

his course is irreversible, [leading] to the world of Rudra, without doubt. / For the worms, insects, and winged creatures dying in that sacred ford, O Yudhiṣṭhira, / named Aṅkūreśvara, an auspicious destination is attained.

This has been told to you, O king, concerning the origin of Aṅkūreśvara, / a sacred ford endowed with all virtues, the supreme destroyer of sin.

Those who hear this being proclaimed with devotion, of great fruit, / they indeed attain the realm of Śiva; of this there is no doubt.

Thus ends the one hundred and sixty-eighth chapter, named 'Description of the Glory of Aṅkūreśvara Tīrtha', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth, Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.