Adhyaya 253
This chapter is cast as a divine instruction: Īśvara speaks to Mahādevī and directs the pilgrim’s route to an eminent shrine called Gufeśvara. Situated in the northern part of Hiranyā, it is praised as “unsurpassed” and explicitly as a “destroyer of all sins.” The theological focus rests on darśana as a transformative act: merely seeing the deity at Gufeśvara is said to erase even the most extreme demerit, expressed through a hyperbolic phalaśruti that it dispels “crores of killings.” In this way, the chapter serves as a concise node in the Prabhāsa-kṣetra sacred map—naming the shrine, locating it within the regional holy geography, and affirming its soteriological power through a strong claim of purification in keeping with tīrtha-māhātmya convention.
Shlokas
Verse 1
ईश्वर उवाच । ततो गच्छेन्महादेवि गुफेश्वरमनुत्तमम् । हिरण्या उत्तरे भागे सर्वपातकनाशनम् । तं दृष्ट्वा मानवो देवि कोटिहत्यां व्यपोहति
Īśvara said: “Then, O Great Goddess, one should go to the unsurpassed Gupheśvara. In the northern part of Hiraṇyā, it destroys all sins. By beholding it, O Goddess, a person casts off even the guilt of ‘a koṭi of slayings’.”
Verse 253
इति श्रीस्कान्दे महापुराण एकाशीतिसाहस्र्यां संहितायां सप्तमे प्रभासखण्डे प्रथमे प्रभासक्षेत्रमाहात्म्ये गुफेश्वरमाहात्म्यवर्णनंनाम त्रिपञ्चाशदुत्तरद्विशततमोऽध्यायः
Thus ends the two-hundred-and-fifty-third chapter, called “The Description of the Greatness of Gupheśvara,” in the Prabhāsa Khaṇḍa (Book Seven) of the Śrī Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the Ekāśītisāhasrī Saṃhitā, within the Prabhāsakṣetra Māhātmya (First division).