Skandapurana 3.2.10.3.1

3.2.10.3.1

Vyāsa said: / Listen, O king, to what happened in Dharmāraṇya, considered auspicious, / which I shall relate, destroying heaps of all sins. / Urged then by the Lord of the unborm [Viṣṇu], the self-manifest [Brahmā], O king, / summoned Kāmadhenu and spoke to her: / “Provide attendants for the brahmins, for each twice-born man / provide two pure-souled ones; O mother, be gracious to me!” / Saying “So be it,” the great cow marked the ground with milk; / from her bellow there came forth men wearing tufts of hair and sacred threads: / thirty-six thousand merchants endowed with great strength, / wearing the sacred thread, highly skilled, versed in all treatises, / endowed with devotion to the twice-born, pious, possessing austerity, / knowing the Purāṇas, of good conduct, righteous, feeding brahmins. / In heaven the gods praise the dwellers of Dharmāraṇya, / transcending the senses at all times in austerity, study, and gifting. / To each twice-born was given a pair of attendants; / and whatever was the gotra of the brahmin previously declared, O king, / that same gotra belonged mutually to him and to his attendant. / Having thus made this arrangement, they dwelt there on the land. / And then discipleship and attendants were granted on earth by the gods; / all was explained by Brahmā for their mutual benefit: / “Carry out their command and give whatever is desired; / bring kindling, flowers, kuśa grass, and the rest day by day. / Conduct yourselves by their permission; never show disrespect. / The natal rite, naming, and auspicious first feeding of solids, / tonsure, investiture with the sacred thread, the Mahānāmnī vows and the like, / whatever ritual action and work, observance, donation, or fast, / must be performed with their permission.” The lords of creation said this: / “If someone begins a rite without their permission, / whether the new-moon day ritual, ancestral rites, or anything auspicious or inauspicious,”