Skandapurana 4.25.74.1

4.25.74.1

Vyāsa said: / "Listen, O Sūta, I shall tell the story of the pot-born sage, / hearing which a man becomes free from passion and a vessel of knowledge. / Having circumambulated the mountain named Śrī, the pot-born sage, / accompanied by his wife, then beheld the vast, delightful forest of Skanda, / filled with flowers in all seasons and with trees bearing luscious fruits, / pleasant to dwell in, rich in roots and tubers, with trees possessing fine bark, / frequented by herds of wild beasts, surrounded by rivers and pools, / with clear, deep lakes, the highest essence of the whole earth, / filled with the cries of various birds, inhabited by diverse sages, / like a single designated abode of austerity, an abode of auspicious treasures. / There is a mountain there named Lohita, resembling the Golden Mountain, / with excellent caves and waterfalls, shining with its peaks and slopes, / like a single fragment of Kailāsa that had arrived here in the land of ritual action, / as if to perform austere tapas, endowed with many wonders. / There Agastya, the best among sages, saw the six-faced one face to face; / prostrating like a stick upon the earth together with his wife, the one of great tapas / praised the son of the mountain-born goddess with hymns arising from the Vedic scriptures, / and also with a eulogy composed by himself, folding his hands in reverence. / Agastya said: / 'Homage be to the lotus feet praised by the multitude of immortals, the maker of nectar, / to the six-faced one of boundless valour, the born joy of Gaurī's heart! / Homage to you, the dispeller of distress of those who bow, the accomplisher of all desires, / the giver of chariots, the rescuer of others, the slayer of the fierce asura Tāraka! / To the unmanifest and manifest, to the thousand-formed, to virtue and the possessor of qualities, to the higher than the high, / to the shore of the shoreless, to the superior and inferior, homage to you whose mount is the peacock! / Homage to you, best among knowers of the absolute, clad in the directions, abiding in the firmament, / golden-complexioned, golden-armed, homage to the golden one of golden semen, / who is the nature of tapas, rich in tapas, the bestower of the fruits of tapas!'