Skanda Purana — Mahesvara Khanda, Shloka 13
कूपे स्नानं नरः कृत्वा भक्त्या यः पांडुनंदन । गयाश्राद्धेन यत्पुण्यं तत्फलं लभते स्फुटम्
kūpe snānaṃ naraḥ kṛtvā bhaktyā yaḥ pāṃḍunaṃdana | gayāśrāddhena yatpuṇyaṃ tatphalaṃ labhate sphuṭam
ಹೇ ಪಾಂಡುನಂದನ! ಯಾರು ಭಕ್ತಿಯಿಂದ ಆ ಕೂಪದಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ನಾನಮಾಡುತ್ತಾರೋ, ಅವರು ಗಯಾಶ್ರಾದ್ಧದಿಂದ ದೊರೆಯುವ ಪುಣ್ಯದ ಅದೇ ಫಲವನ್ನು ನಿಶ್ಚಯವಾಗಿ ಪಡೆಯುತ್ತಾರೆ।
Sūta (Lomaharṣaṇa) narrating the Māhātmya (contextual attribution within Māheśvarakhaṇḍa)
Tirtha: Guha-kūpa (Gayā-tulya tīrtha)
Type: kund
Listener: Pāṇḍunandana
Scene: A devotee bathes in the stone-lined well with folded hands; subtle ancestral presences are suggested (pitṛs receiving water); a distant symbolic vignette of Gayā’s śrāddha rites appears as an equivalence motif.
FAQs
Devotional bathing at a sanctified tīrtha can bestow merit equal to renowned ancestral rites, showing the power of sacred geography and bhakti.
A sacred well (kūpa) associated with the Staṃbheśvara tīrtha-context in Kaumārikākhaṇḍa, compared in merit to Gayā.
Snāna (ritual bathing) in the well, performed with devotion (bhaktyā).