The Skanda Purana
by G. V. Tagare | 1950 | 2,545,880 words
This page describes The Greatness of Koti Tirtha which is chapter 203 of the English translation of the Skanda Purana, the largest of the eighteen Mahapuranas, preserving the ancient Indian society and Hindu traditions in an encyclopedic format, detailling on topics such as dharma (virtous lifestyle), cosmogony (creation of the universe), mythology (itihasa), genealogy (vamsha) etc. This is the two hundred third chapter of the Reva-khanda of the Avantya-khanda of the Skanda Purana.
Chapter 203 - The Greatness of Koṭi Tīrtha
[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]
Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said:
1-6. Thereafter, O Lord of the earth, a person should go to the excellent Koṭitīrtha where great and highly esteemed sages, a crore in number, became Siddhas.
After performing an elaborated penance, the sages installed Śiva as well as goddess Koṭīśvarī, Cāmuṇḍā who killed the demon called Mahiṣa.
O king, it was on the fourteenth lunar day in the dark half of the month of Bhādrapada that the sages invited crores of Tīrthas and installed Siva. If the constellation Hasta coincides with that lunar day, it is destructive of all sins. One should go there at that time and take his holy bath with mental concentration and purity. Thereby he redeems twenty-one generations of members of his family from Naraka. Merely by offering libations with gingelly seeds and water, this is achieved. All the more so if the man performs Śrāddha. Holy bath, Dāna, Japa, Homa, study of the Vedas and worship of deities performed, become a crore times more effective through the contact of that Tīrtha.