Skandapurana 6.3.218

The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, O lord of the earth, one should go to the exceedingly auspicious sacred ford / known as Jamadagni, where Janārdana attained perfection.

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / How did Vāsudeva, the teacher of the world, having assumed a human form / out of a desire for the welfare of the worlds, attain perfection, O best of the twice-born?

I wish to hear this entire deed of the god of gods, the wielder of the discus, / narrated properly by you, O sinless one.

The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Formerly, O great king, there was a great ruler of the Haihayas, / a king known as Kārtavīrya, possessing a thousand arms,

endowed with elephants, horses, and chariots, foremost among all bearers of weapons, / bathed at the completion of vows in Vedic learning, granting safety to all beings,

the glorious lord of Māhiṣmatī, a king commanding an akṣauhiṇī. / Once, that mighty one set forth to hunt deer.

After many days, he reached the unsurpassed Bhṛgukaccha, / where the ascetic Jamadagni of great fiery radiance resided,

accompanied by Reṇukā, glorious, granting safety to all beings. / His son was Rāma, the Lord Nārāyaṇa manifest in person,

endowed with all the virtues of a kṣatriya, a knower of the absolute, the best of brahmins, / pleasing his parents with supreme devotion in accordance with the ultimate truth.

Then, seeing that majestic Arjuna roaming about while hunting, / Jamadagni approached and invited him with hospitality.

Saying 'So be it,' that king, together with his servants, army, and mounts, / went to the sacred hermitage of that great-souled seer.

At that very moment, it became abundant and filled with supreme splendor; / beholding that, the king was filled with utter astonishment.

As soon as he arrived, the king, together with his servants and army, was fed with prepared / supreme food at will by the brahmin, / and he asked, "What is this? What is the cause and the power?"

Recognizing the power of Kāmadhenu, he then said to the twice-born: / "O wise brahmin, give me the dakṣiṇā—the spotted, excellent cow.

A hundred, a hundred thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand more, / and one hundred million adorned cows I will give to you."

Jamadagni said: / "Not for tens of thousands, nor millions, nor hundreds of millions / do I give this excellent wish-granting cow, my friend. Return home."

Addressed thus by that twice-born, O best of kings, O descendant of Bharata, / his eyes red with anger, he spoke these words:

"Since you act so willfully even toward me, O disgrace of the twice-born, / I shall take the wish-granting cow from your house before your very eyes!"

The brahmin said:
“Who plays without fear with an enraged great serpent, / that he would take away my cow, looked upon by death itself?”

Having spoken thus and seized a great staff, like another staff of Brahmā, / Jamadagni, exceedingly enraged, said:

“Let whichever base-born kṣatriya who has the power or fiery energy / take my cow at once, his life depleted along with his retinue!”

Hearing these fierce words, the Haihaya, surrounded by hundreds [of men], / running forward on the ground, fell down, struck by the staff of Brahmā.

Then, from the snort of the cow, [warriors] with swords, nooses, and scimitars in hand / were seen issuing forth in thousands, dark and spotted.

From the tips of her nostrils and the tips of her hair came Kirātas; from her anus, Māgadhas; / and in the spaces of her pores arose hundreds and thousands.

Thus striking one another, the Haihaya burnt the Ṭaṅkaṇas, / and they met their destruction together with the brahmin through the fiery energy of Arjuna.

Kārtavīrya, having won victory in the battle and slain the best of brahmins, / went to his city rejoicing, deluded by the power of fate.

Then Rāma arrived in haste after the enemy had departed; / he saw his mother lamenting beside his father.

Rāma said:
“By whom has this reckless act been committed through ignorance to his own destruction, / who, wishing to slay my father, desires to behold death in this world?”

Then she, distraught at Rāma's words as if drained of life, / beating her belly with both hands, said to him:

“By the cruel Arjuna, along with other kṣatriyas, / coming here, your father was slain by that strong-armed one.

Behold your slain father, lifeless and unconscious. / Having cremated him according to rule, O son, offer him proper oblations of water.”

Hearing these words and bowing to his mother, / he made a vow; listen to it, O king:

“Twenty-one times over I shall make the earth rid of all kṣatriya lineages; / and having bathed in their blood, I shall offer oblations to your husband.

And severing the arms of that evil-minded Kārtavīrya with an axe, / I will drink his blood; hear this truth from me!”

Having thus made the vow, that powerful son of Jamadagni, / overcome with great fury, then cremated his father,

and, bewildered with anger, Rāma went to the city of Māhiṣmatī; / cutting off the forest of his arms, he slew that vilest of kṣatriyas.

He set out to exterminate the kṣatriyas, surveying the earth / with its seven continents and oceans, its mountains, forests, and woods.

From the eastern to the western direction, from south to north in the Kurus, / he made five pools of blood in Samantapañcaka.

Bewildered with anger, in those pools whose water was blood, / he satiated his ancestors with blood; so it has been heard by us.

Then his ancestors, headed by Ṛcīka, approached that bull among brahmins / and said to him, “Forgive!” whereupon he ceased.

The region near those pools of bloody waters / is proclaimed holy, having an even wheel of austerity.

Having turned back from that deed, Rāma, supreme in righteousness, / said to the ancestors, O Pāṇḍava: “The blood that by me

was cast into the five sacred fords—may it become an excellent sacred ford!” / Having said, “So be it,” all those ancestors vanished from sight.

Such contact with Rāma on the divine path, O Yudhiṣṭhira, / destroys all sins through seeing and touching, for men.

To instill faith in Reṇukā, even today the ancestral deities / are seen situated on the divine path, destroying all sins.

At that sacred ford, O king of kings, at the confluence of the Narmadā and the ocean, / having performed ablution according to the rules, men are freed from grave sins.

The great ocean should not be touched even with the tip of a kuśa blade [without a mantra], O son of Kuntī; / one should bathe there with this mantra, O best of kings:

“Salutations to you who are of the form of Viṣṇu! Salutations to you, O lord of waters! / Bestow your presence, O lord of gods, in the ocean of salty waters.”
— Thus is the mantra for touching [the ocean].

“Agni is energy, and with Mṛḍā in the body; seed then is Viṣṇu, the navel of nectar.” / Uttering this true statement, O Pāṇḍava, one should then plunge into the lord of rivers.

Furnished with five jewels and accompanied by fruits, flowers, and unbroken grains, / one should offer water oblation to the great ocean with this mantra, O king of kings:

“You are the repository of all jewels, the source of all treasuries of jewels, / the lord supreme among all immortals; accept the water oblation, salutations to you!”
— Thus is the mantra for offering water oblation.

“Deliver me from the sin born of birth, O great ocean! / Worshipped, go to the mountains, O treasure of jewels, O best of conjunctions!”
— Thus is the dismissal mantra.

Who else than the god Ocean, O breaker of the gates of heaven? / There, reaching up to the ocean, is the unexcelled great sacred ford.

There the god was established by Rāma, son of Jamadagni, / where gods along with gandharvas, sages, and accomplished cāraṇas

worship Virūpākṣa and the incomparable Jamadagni; / and those mortals on earth who behold the goddess Reṇukā

dwell in the beloved abode, the auspicious realm of Śiva, for their desired span of time. / Having bathed there, O king, a person offering libations to the ancestral deities

rescues a hundred and one generations from terrifying hell. / Having bathed and given gifts there together, and having heard [this] with devotion,

Thus ends the two hundred and eighteenth chapter, titled “Description of the Greatness of the Sacred Ford of Jamadagni's Son,” in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skandapurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand verses.