Skandapurana 5.69
English (machine translation) 5.69
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5.69.2
Sūta said: / Then, when the world was stripped of kṣatriyas, the kṣatriya women, for the sake of lineage, / gave birth through brahmins to excellent field-born sons. / These field-born sons, resembling kṣatriyas, grew to maturity, / and by their prowess expelled the best of the twice-born and seized the earth.
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Then all those brahmins, having been brought to humilation, / approached the descendant of Bhṛgu and spoke, overcome with great distress:
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'O Rāma, Rāma of mighty arms, the earth that was given by you to us / in the horse sacrifice has been seized by force by the kṣatriyas. / Therefore, slay those vile kṣatriyas and give it to us once more; / cause that increase of our welfare, if your manhood remains!'
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Then Rāma, seized with wrath, set out again with those Śabaras, / Pulindas, and Medakas to put an end to the kṣatriyas.
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Slaying the kṣatriyas right there and taking their copious blood, / he filled that pit and performed the tarpaṇa for the ancestors.
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He gave the earth again to the brahmins in a horse sacrifice, / and banished by them there, he went to the proximity of the ocean.
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In this manner, the earth was cleared of all kṣatriyas by him / twenty-one times, O best of brahmins, and presented to the twice-born.
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The ancestors were satisfied with blood by that great-souled one; / thus his vow was fulfilled, and he became free from anger.
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When the twenty-first ancestor-tarpaṇa was reached, / a bodiless voice arising from the ancestors spoke from the sky:
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'Rāma, O fortunate Rāma! Desist from this despicable deed. / We are satisfied with you because of the fulfillment of your vow.
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The deed that was done by you no one else will do; / nor has such a deed arising from enmity over a father ever been done by anyone before.
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Therefore, my child, we are pleased and will grant your heart's desire. / Therefore, ask quickly for something even difficult for the thirty [gods] to attain.'
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Rāma said: / 'If the ancestors are pleased with me and grant my desire, / then let this sacred ford be known in the world by my name, / freed from the defect of blood, and frequented by the best ascetics.'
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The ancestors said: / 'This pit born of the tarpaṇa for the ancestors, which was constructed by you, / shall attain renown throughout the three worlds as Rāmahrada.
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Where people filled with devotion shall make tarpaṇa offerings to the ancestors, / they will obtain the fruit of an aśvamedha and reach the supreme state.
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Whatever person performs a śrāddha with devotion on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight / in the month of Bhādrapada for someone slain by weapons,
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he will deliver that deceased spirit, even if it has become a pretahood, / or has resorted to hell, or is tainted with sin.'
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Sūta said: / Having spoken thus to Rāma, they fell silent thereafter; / and Rāma too performed austerities right there, free from anger.
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Therefore, on that day, with every effort, a śrāddha should be performed / by the faithful for anyone slain by weapons.
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For those who died by affliction—by snakes, fire, poison, or hanging— / a śrāddha on that day is declared to bestow liberation.
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Whoever satisfies the ancestors there with waters during the fortnight of the departed / becomes free of debt to them and is glorified in the ancestral world.
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All this māhātmya arising from Rāmahrada has been recounted to you, / O best of brahmins; it destroys all sins.
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A person who himself recites this with devotion at the time of a śrāddha / undoubtedly obtains the entire fruit born of a śrāddha at Gayā.
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Or when a sacred time has arrived, if he reads it in the presence of brahmins, / he obtains the entire fruit of a pitṛmedha sacrifice. // 26
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Or whatever man listens with devotion to this being recited / obtains the entire fruit of a Sautrāmaṇī [sacrifice] that has been performed, without doubt. // 27
5.69.69
Thus ends the sixty-ninth chapter, entitled “Description of the Origin of Rāmahrada”, in the māhātmya of the Hāṭakeśvara kṣetra, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [part] in the venerable Skanda Mahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.
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- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit