Skandapurana 6.3.20

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / By your grace I have heard of the diverse duties and the dissolutions / brought about by the god Śarva, and whatever was witnessed by you, O sinless one.

Now I wish to hear of the majesty of the wielder of the horn-bow (Śārṅgadhanvan) / that was experienced by you, O foremost of brahmins; you should tell me that.

The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Hereafter I shall declare the characteristics of the destruction of living beings, / whatever sign is seen there, and how the kalpa is arranged.

There are falls of meteors accompanied by thunderbolts, as well as an earthquake; / a shower of dust falls, along with a dreadful roar.

Yakṣas, kinnaras, gandharvas, piśācas, serpents, and rākṣasas— / all of them go to dissolution when the end of the yuga has arrived.

Mountains, oceans, rivers, and various lakes, / trees, species of creepers, and grasses reach their end.

When the three worlds, both moving and unmoving, have thus become distraught, / devoid of all medicinal herbs and water, and turned into dry timber,

as I looked at midday when the time for ritual ablution arrived, / the three worlds appeared like blazing fire, difficult to behold and unapproachable.

Two suns were in the east, O dear one, and two in the west and north; / likewise in the south two blazing suns were seen.

Two suns stood in the realm of serpents, and two in the middle of the sky; / thus these twelve suns burned every direction.

They burned the whole earth, along with its mountains, forests, and groves; / nothing was seen unburnt except the Revā and myself.

As the earth was being burned, an odor of sacrificial offerings arose; / then my limbs became parched, and severe thirst overcame me.

For I could find no drinking water, dried up as it was by the suns; / when I looked at my water-pot, even the water there was dry.

Then, tormented by grief and especially afflicted by hunger and thirst, / I flew upward from the earth, looking toward the sky.

Presently I saw in the sky a palace adorned with erotic elegance; / then, wishing to know it, I set out, O best of kings.

Adorned with doors and bolts, with a wonderful enclosure wall / and possessing splendid spires, I reached the entrance area.

Eighty-six thousand yojanas in height, / and half of that in width, it was made of gold and adorned with jewels.

There in the middle I saw an excellent couch, O best of kings; / and lying upon the couch, a Person with divine hair,

the ends of his hair curled at the front, extending a whole yojana in length, / adorned with a splendid crown of brilliant radiance,

dark-complexioned, resplendent as a lotus petal, with radiant luster and a handsome nose, / with a lion-like face, long arms, and marked with an excellent beard upon his cheeks,

charming with the fold of three lines [on his neck], adorned with earrings, / of expansive splendor, with stout limbs, adorned with auspicious curls of hair on his flanks,

graceful in his waist, well-proportioned in his knees and shanks, / the god whose soles are marked with lotuses, with slightly red, beautiful nails and fingers,

deep as the roar of a cloud, handsome in every limb; / I beheld that god, the Supreme Person, reposing in the middle of the couch,

holding the conch, discus, and mace in his hands, reclining upon his right side, / with a hand raised holding a rosary, equal in radiance to ten thousand suns.

Seeing that god, full of devotion, I stood desiring to praise him: / "Victory, O Lord! Victory, O Lord of Speech! Victory, O you whose divine limbs are adorned!

“Victory, O Lord of the gods, glorious one, eternal Brahman manifest! / The worlds abide within your body; you are the refuge, O supreme Lord!

Supported by you indeed, O Lord of the gods, all the worlds remain established. / You are the highest among all beings; you are the creator, the upholder of the earth.

You are the hotṛ's duty of the fire-sacrifices, and you alone are the thread and the sacred mantra. / You are Gokarṇa, Bhadrakarṇa, and the supreme state of the Great Lord.

You are the fame among all fames that destroys distress and sin. / You are Naimiṣa, Kurukṣetra, and the supreme abode of Viṣṇu.

By you indeed in mere play, O God, was the earth spanned by a step; / Bali was bound by you, O God, and Indra's station was established by you.

You are Kali, Dvāpara, O God, as well as Tretā and Kṛtayuga. / You are the subduer of Pralamba; you are the creator and the destroyer.

By you indeed are the worlds upheld; you are Time, the destruction of all. / By you indeed, O God, all those divine wombs were created.

You are the path for all worlds, and you are liberation, the highest refuge. / The eternal god Brahmā, consisting of the quality of passion, is born from you; / Rudra too is born from anger, while you are established in pure goodness.

All this moving and unmoving creation, O God, was made by you for your sport.” / Thus, with a body scorched [by thirst], the lordly God was praised by me,

with supreme devotion, O King, the sovereign Lord of all creatures. / As I was praising him, I saw jars full of water right there.

Then my thirst, which had been forgotten, flared up again. / Thereupon I approached the side of that person,

desiring to drink the water; but again I thought: / “He does not see me, and though asleep, he does not awake.

Whoever, deluded by sin, awakens one sleeping peacefully, / to him accrues the great guilt of slaying a brahmin.”

While I was thinking thus, a second man arrived; / he looked at nothing, said nothing, and wore an antelope skin over his left shoulder.

He had matted locks, bore a water-pot, carried a staff, was girt with a girdle, / had his whole body smeared with sacred ashes, possessed great splendor, and had three eyes.

Just as, wishing to praise him, I looked with a clear gaze, / there, with great wealth of beauty springing from all her limbs,

I saw a woman covered [in garments] and adorned with all ornaments. / Seeing her, I fell to the ground, saying, “Hail!

Hail, O you born of Rudra’s body! O eternal one bearing victory! / Hail, O Kaumārī, Māhendrī, Vaiṣṇavī, and Vāruṇī!

Hail, O Kauberī, Sāvitrī! Hail, O supporter, fair-faced one! / Protect me, whose body is tormented by thirst, O mother of the moving and unmoving world!”

The goddess said: / “I am pleased, O tiger among brahmins, with your very beautiful words. / What is in your mind is known to me, O best of the twice-born.

Listen, O brahmin: I too have a very severe vow, / which, through the fickleness of a woman and with slow intellect, was undertaken by me, hard to accomplish:

‘If a son shall be born to me, most righteous and renowned in the worlds, / only after giving my breast to a brahmin shall I give it to the child.’

That son has been born to me, as was spoken, O great sage. / Drink from the breast, O leader among brahmins, if you wish to live!”

Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said: / “This is an improper act for brahmins; whoever drinks this breast / must undergo the sacred thread ceremony again and does not attain the fruition of his vow.

Brahminhood is difficult to attain in the three worlds, O lotus-eyed one. / Hear about the sacraments through which a brahmin is consecrated:

First is the sowing of seed in women with sacred rites; / because the seed is cast, it is called the casting of seed.

After that, O fortunate lady, the rite of impregnation is the second; / the rite for procuring a male child is the third, and the parting of the hair is the fourth;

the fifth is the birth-rite, the name-giving is called the sixth; / the seventh is the first outing, and the eighth is the feeding of solid food;

the ninth is the tonsure ceremony, and the tenth is the tying of the muñja-grass girdle; / then rites with reed-stalks, wooden implements, Soma rituals, and earthly rites;

and next, union with a wife, and then the rites for the gods; / the human rites, the ancestral rites, in the eighteenth, O fair one;

the offerings to living beings, what is yet to come, the iṣṭi rites, and after that the seasonal sacrifices;

the ancestral rite on the full-moon day of Śrāvaṇa, the first-fruits sacrifice on the full-moon of Caitra and Āśvina, the animal sacrifice, the sautrāmaṇī, the agniṣṭoma, the atyagniṣṭoma;

the ṣoḍaśī, the vājapeya, the atirātra, the aptoryāma, and the ten-day vājapeyas; / and forbearance toward all beings, absence of envy, purity, auspicious conduct, freedom from miserliness, and lack of craving:

consecrated by these forty-eight sacraments, one becomes a brahmin.

Knowing this, O fortunate lady, you should not make me drink. / How could one like me drink from a breast meant for an infant, O auspicious one?”

Hearing these words of mine, the woman spoke these words:

“If you do not drink the breast-milk, the child will die. / It is heard in the three worlds, in the Vedas, and in the traditional codes: / one is freed from all sins, but the killing of an embryo does not release [one].

The murder of a great devotee will be upon you; / and for eight hundred lifetimes one suffers for the killing of an embryo.

Having died, he attains the state of a dog for three hundred years; / then, when that is exhausted, he enters the womb of a crow;

there too he suffers for eight hundred [years] for his sinful deed; / for ten births he is a boar, and after that he is born as a worm;

then, ascending the ladder of rebirths, he takes birth as a cow, an elephant, a horse, and a human. / This is heard in the revealed scriptures and in the Vedas, O scorcher of foes.

Greater than all sins is the sin of killing a child, O best of the twice-born. / A brahmin burdened with the killing of a child is surely cooked in hell.”

and endures the torment of Yama for eight hundred years. / Therefore, the fault is lighter for you who drink of my breast.

Likewise, for one who does not drink, sin lasting for many years arises. / For you, drinking from the breast brings an end to hunger and thirst, and brings merit.

Therefore, you should never make your mind doubtful here. / Come, brahmin, drink of my breast as you please for the child’s sake.”

Then, having heard her words, I prepared to drink from her breast, / and drinking that supreme breast, I knew no satiety.

Thirty thousand and [several] hundred years [passed] thus, O Bhārata. / Then I woke upon her lap, bewildered by illusory sleep.

When my delusion had departed with the sleep, as I looked, O Pāṇḍava, / I did not see the sleeping one, nor that child, O mighty one.

And I saw there those four pitchers, O Bhārata, / but I did not see that goddess; she had gone somewhere.

As I stood there reflecting and pondering in this way, / the goddess spoke words in a gently smiling voice.

The holy goddess said: / “That dark-complexioned person who slept was Hara, who has also departed. / Those four jars which were there are the oceans, O best of brahmins.

And the child whom you saw was Brahmā, the grandfather of the worlds. / And know me to be the earth, having seven continents on every side,

who departed leaving you, well established upon the earth's surface. / And you behold, O brahmin, this Narmadā, the best of rivers,

endowed with holy characteristics, great, for the benefit of all living beings. / She is renowned as the river Revā; therefore Narmadā has not died.

Knowing thus, attain peace; be at ease, O great sage.” / Having spoken thus to me, the goddess disappeared right there.

Thus indeed the Lord always lies, abiding in sattva during the dissolution; / Mahādeva, the embodiment of sattva, upon whose support the universe rests.

Thus was this supreme marvel experienced and seen by me; / holy and destroying all sins, it has been recounted to you, O best of men.

This deeds of Viṣṇu have been recounted, as inquired by you. / What else do you wish to hear again, O mighty-armed one?

Thus ends the twentieth chapter, named 'Description of the Account of the Vārāha Kalpa', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth Āvantyakhaṇḍa in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].