Shiva Purana (Rudra Samhita, Sati Khanda) and allied Shaiva Puranas
Pan-IndiaShaiva
Daksha, son of Brahma and father of Sati, never forgave his son-in-law for not standing up when he walked into an assembly. He arranged a vast sacrifice and left Shiva's name off the list. Sati wanted to go anyway; Shiva told her nothing good would come of it, and she went. Her father greeted her with scorn and spoke of her husband as a beggar in a cremation ground. Sati could not bear to keep a body that had come from such a man. In the Shaiva telling she sat down, drew the fire of yoga up through herself and burned. When the news reached Kailash, Shiva pulled a lock of hair from his head and struck the ground with it, and from it stood Virabhadra with Bhadrakali beside him. They fell on the sacrifice, scattered the gods and took Daksha's head. Afterwards, at the gods' pleading, Shiva let the rite be finished and gave Daksha a goat's head to live with. Then he lifted Sati's body and wandered with it, and as it fell away piece by piece the places where the pieces landed became the seats of the goddess. Sati was born again as the mountain's daughter, Parvati.
Several temples claim the ground of the sacrifice. Daksheswara Mahadev at Kankhal near Haridwar says the fire was lit there; Kottiyoor in Kerala holds a twenty-seven-day festival on what it says is the spot; Chhapra in Bihar and Draksharama in Andhra keep the same claim. Each tells the story as above with its own site as the stage.
What is different here:
Same plot, four different locations; the Kankhal identification is unverified against a primary text.
The Bhagavata tells the same rupture with its own emphases. Sati, meeting her father's contempt, gives up her body in the fire of her own concentration. Virabhadra beheads Daksha; the gods flee to Brahma and then to Vishnu, and it is Vishnu's counsel and Shiva's mercy together that let the sacrifice be completed with a goat-headed Daksha. In the Vaishnava reading of the aftermath, Vishnu's discus divides the corpse on Shiva's shoulder so that his grief can end, and the fallen limbs become the goddess's seats.
What is different here:
Vishnu is central to the reconciliation and, in the Vaishnava reading, cuts the body; the Shaiva telling has the body fall apart of itself.
In the Vayu Purana Daksha does not wait to be caught. As Virabhadra storms the sacrificial ground the terrified sacrifice itself, and Daksha with it, take the form of an antelope and bolt; Virabhadra hunts the animal down and takes its head, after which the goat's head is fitted.
Two texts turn the wrecking into a battle among the great gods. When Virabhadra attacks, Vishnu himself stands to defend the sacrifice and the two fight to a standstill, until Brahma steps between them and brokers a peace: Daksha is restored with a goat's head and Shiva is given his share of every offering thereafter.
What is different here:
A Vishnu–Virabhadra duel and Brahma as peacemaker replace the simple rout.