Skandapurana 6.3.34

Chapter 34

The glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / 'Right there, however, is another [sacred ford] of the great-souled Āditya. / I shall proclaim it, O best among men, if your mind is inclined to hear.' / 34.1

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / 'Having heard this matchless wonder coming from your mouth, / my hair has stood on end with amazement, O best of sages.' / 34.2

'The thousand-rayed god, the destroyer, creator, and spotless one, / by his descent became the uplifter of the worlds on the bank of the Narmadā.' / 34.3

'Did the Lord assume a human form, or [did this happen] by the fruit of austerity? / In whose lineage was he born, and under whose sway was the god brought?' / 34.4

The glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / 'A pure brahmin endowed with devotion, born in the lineage of Kulika, / resolved to make a pilgrimage to that sacred ford, thinking, "I shall behold the sun."' / 34.5

'Having set out for over a hundred yojanas, fasting and without water, / he was indeed restrained at the end of a dream by the god of gods:' / 34.6

'"O sage of great resolve, enough of such an observance for you! / Behold me pervading all that is unmoving and moving."' / 34.7

'"I radiate heat; then I bring rain; I withhold and I release. / Whoever sees [me], sees neither death nor dissolution."' / 34.8

'"Choose a boon, auspicious one, whatever you desire for yourself."' / 34.9

The brahmin said: / 'If you are pleased with me, O god, if a boon is to be given to me, / remain ever present on the northern bank of the Narmadā.' / 34.10

'Be the giver of boons to those self-controlled ones who, standing a hundred yojanas away, / remember you with supreme devotion, O god.' / 34.11

'To those who are hunchbacked, blind, deaf, mute, or have any defective faculties, / who bow before your feet, be the giver of boons.' / 34.12

'To those whose noses are wasted, whose intellect is lost, and who are reduced to bone and skin— / on them, O god, quickly bestow your compassion.' / 34.13

'To those also who, having bathed there in the waters of the Narmadā day after day, / worship you, O Lord of the universe, be the giver of boons.' / 34.14

'To those who praise you at dawn with Vedic and worldly hymns, / grant the desired boon, O god, O infallible one.' / 34.15

'To the men who perform the shaving of hair before you on earth, / O Master, a boon must be given: this is my supreme boon.' / 34.16

Saying to that sage with compassion, 'Let it be so,' / and having remained with a hundredth part [of himself], O king of kings, he vanished from sight. / 34.17

A man who goes with devotion to that sacred ford and performs a bath, / and makes libations to the ancestors and the gods, obtains the fruit of an Agniṣṭoma sacrifice. / 34.18

He who enters the fire at that sacred ford, O ruler of men, / illuminating all the quarters indeed, goes to the world of Agni. / 34.19

He who, having reached that sacred ford, abandons his body here, / goes to the world of Varuṇa; thus Śaṃkara spoke. / 34.20

Whoever abandons his body at that sacred ford through renunciation, / is honored in the celestial world for sixty thousand years. / 34.21

Having dwelled [there] filled with troops of apsarases and echoing with divine sounds, / he returns to the mortal world and becomes knower of the Vedas and the Vedāṅgas. / 34.22

Freed from disease and sorrow, he becomes the master of tens of millions in wealth; / endowed with sons and a wife, he lives for a hundred autumns. / 34.23

He who, having risen in the morning, then remembers the Sun there, / is freed from sin born since birth; there is no doubt in this. / 34.24

Thus ends the thirty-fourth chapter, named 'Description of Ravitīrtha', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth [section], the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].