Skanda Purana — Nagara Khanda, Shloka 8
किं व्रतैः किं वृथा दानैः किं जपैर्नियमेन वा । महाकालस्य ते सर्वे कलां नार्हंति षोडशीम्
kiṃ vrataiḥ kiṃ vṛthā dānaiḥ kiṃ japairniyamena vā | mahākālasya te sarve kalāṃ nārhaṃti ṣoḍaśīm
What use are vows? What use are fruitless gifts? What use are recitations and disciplines? Even all of them together do not equal one sixteenth part of Mahākāla’s grace and merit.
Sūta
Tirtha: Mahākāla
Type: kshetra
Listener: General audience; rhetorical questions address practitioners
Scene: Mahākāla’s liṅga radiates overwhelming light; around it lie symbolic items of vows, gifts, rosaries, and ascetic tools shown as small and dim, emphasizing that even all combined are less than a sixteenth of Mahākāla’s glory.
FAQs
The text exalts Mahākāla-bhakti and kṣetra-mahātmya as surpassing routine religiosity when those acts lack true devotion and right purpose.
Mahākāla’s kṣetra at Ujjayinī (Ujjain) is the implied locus of this exaltation.
No new prescription; it is a comparative praise asserting the superior efficacy of Mahākāla’s grace/merit.
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