Skandapurana 6.3.184

Chapter 184
Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said:
Then one should go to Dhautapāpa, near the Bhṛgu sacred ford.
There Bhṛgu was shaken again and again by the bull.

Therefore, it is renowned in the worlds by the name Dhautapāpa.
The Great God remained there, O best of the Bhṛgus, to bestow satisfaction.

Whoever bathes in that sacred ford, O lord of men, even deceitfully,
is freed from all sins; there should be no doubt about this.

Moreover, whoever bathes there according to proper rite and worships Śiva,
and honours the gods and the ancestors, is freed from all mortal sins.

The murder of a brahmin and the slaughter of cows, O Yudhiṣṭhira,
terrified, would never enter that sacred ford; and even if entered, they would perish.

Yudhiṣṭhira said:
Tell of this wondrous thing in this world, O best of brahmins,
how the murder of a brahmin indeed does not enter Dhautapāpa.

There will be no sin equal to the murder of a brahmin here [in this world].
How, then, having entered Dhautapāpa, is it destroyed, O brahmin?
I ask all this in detail out of curiosity; please tell it.

Mārkaṇḍeya said:
Formerly, at the primordial creation, Śambhu, seeing the unnatural fifth head
of Brahmā Parameṣṭhin, which resembled a horse's face,

severed that head with the join of his thumb and finger.
As soon as the head was severed, the murder of a brahmin arose then.

And he was joined with the murder of a brahmin on the northern bank of the Narmadā.
Because he was shaken off by the bull who is the embodiment of dharma, O king,

the Blessed Lord Śambhu saw the goddess Dhauteśvarī installed there
by the bull, worshipped by all the deities.

Having seen Durgā Dhauteśvarī, the destroyer of the murder of a brahmin,
Śaṃkara, the destroyer of Tripura, rested there.

That Śaṃkara, the god of gods, the choice one, considered himself free from the murder of a brahmin
due to the power of that sacred ford, deeply amazed upon seeing the murder of a brahmin far from the sacred ford.

Magnified by the power of dharma, the murder, frightened through fear of the goddess,
would not enter the cleansed-sin [ford]—a dark woman clad in red garments, wearing red garlands, attached to a red cord.

"Desiring me, [yet] standing in secret afar from the region of my shoulder by the power of the foremost sacred ford—" / reflecting [thus] in his mind, the god, the enemy of Smara, resolved to dwell at that sacred ford.

Having reflected repeatedly, the god himself remained, renowned on earth as [the cleanser of] washed-away sin; / he made his abode right there, in the region adjacent to [where sins are] washed away.

From that time forth, O king of kings, that sacred ford, which destroys the murder of a brahmin, / has been established on the Narmadā, known as Vidhautapāpa.

The ninth day of the bright fortnight of Āśvina is especially distinguished at that sacred ford, / and indeed a period of three days, O king of kings, beginning with the seventh.

Having fasted with devotion on the eighth day, whoever reads the Veda together with its auxiliary limbs /—comprising the Ṛg, Yajus, and Sāma—in a single day and night,

reciting it, is freed from the murder of a brahmin—of this there is no doubt— / and also from intercourse with an outcaste woman, and approaching the wife of an elder.

Having bathed with a single pot [of water] superior with the water of Brahmā, one is completely freed. / A woman who is barren, one who gives birth only to daughters, one who bears a single child, or one whose offspring die—

she too, having bathed with the water from jars, becomes the mother of living sons, blessed with children. / Even a man who cannot recite, having fasted, [if] born of the Ṛg, Yajus, or Sāma,

a brahmin reciting a single verse of the Ṛg on the new/full moon day, O king; / or, fasting without the Ṛg verses, one should chant the Gāyatrī, the mother of the Vedas.

Chanting on the ninth day, the foremost of brahmins is freed from an accumulation of sins. / Thus has been related, dear one, what was spoken by the great seers in the Purāṇas.

Dhautapāpa, of great religious merit, was declared to me by Śiva. / But whoever gives up life in water, in fire, or on land,

he goes in an aerial chariot shining like the blazing sun, / drawn by swans and peacocks, attended by hosts of apsarases,

to the supreme abode of Śiva, which is difficult to attain even by the gods. / There he sports at his own will as long as the moon, sun, and stars endure.

Moreover, whatever woman brings about the end of her life at Dhautapāpa, / at that very moment, O Pārtha, she attains the state of being male.

Now, what is the use of speaking much? Whether auspicious or inauspicious, / whatever is done at Dhautapāpa bears imperishable fruit, O king.

One should regularly renounce grain, and renounce the objects of the senses and the like; / [eating] roots, fruits, and so forth, one must not abandon water alone.

Whoever acts thus, O Pārtha, goes to the world of Rudra. / Having enjoyed all pleasures there, he is born as a king on earth.

Thus ends the one hundred and eighty-fourth chapter, titled 'Description of the Glory of the Sacred Ford of Dhautapāpa', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skandapurāṇa comprising eighty-one thousand verses.