Skanda Purana — Nagara Khanda, Shloka 48
व्यास उवाच । ब्रह्मचारी भवेत्पूर्वं गृहस्थश्च ततः परम् । वानप्रस्थो यतिश्चैव ततो मोक्षमवाप्नुयात्
vyāsa uvāca | brahmacārī bhavetpūrvaṃ gṛhasthaśca tataḥ param | vānaprastho yatiścaiva tato mokṣamavāpnuyāt
Vyāsa sprach: Zuerst soll man Brahmacārin sein, ein Schüler in Keuschheit; dann Gṛhastha, Hausvater. Danach werde man Vānaprastha, Waldbewohner, und schließlich Yati, Entsagender. Durch diese Stufen erlangt man Mokṣa, die Befreiung.
Vyāsa
Listener: Śuka
Scene: A symbolic four-panel or continuous narrative: student with staff and sacred thread; householder with family and fire-altar; forest-dweller with simple hut; renunciant with ochre cloth—ending in a luminous horizon signifying mokṣa.
FAQs
Mokṣa is supported by a disciplined life structured through the four āśramas, not by impulsive renunciation.
No specific site is named; the verse provides dharma-architecture commonly taught within tīrtha-mahātmya narratives.
The prescription is āśrama-dharma itself: sequential life-stages culminating in renunciation and liberation.