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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Ādi
Samudra Manthana
Classical
The story is told by Sauti to Saunaka, and it starts with a horse. Two sisters, Kadru and Vinata, are looking at a splendid white steed called Uchchaihshravas, ever young and marked with good signs, which the gods honour. Saunaka asks where it came from, and why the gods churned the ocean. Sauti begins with Mount Meru, a golden, radiant peak, home of the gods and Gandharvas and closed to sinners, its slopes full of fierce animals, healing herbs and birdsong. The gods meet on its summit, anxious. They want amrita, the nectar of immortality.
Narayana tells Brahma to have the gods and the Asuras churn the ocean. The churning, he says, will bring up amrita, herbs and gems. But first they must pull up a mountain, Mandara, to use as the stick. The gods cannot uproot it. Vishnu and Brahma tell Ananta, the great serpent, to do it, and he lifts the mountain with all its woods and brings it to the shore. The ocean agrees to give its waters, on condition that it gets a share. The king of the tortoises agrees to bear the mountain on his back, and Indra holds it in place.
Vasuki, the serpent, is the rope. The Asuras take his head and the gods his tail, and Ananta adjusts the tension. Vasuki's breath becomes smoke and fire, and turns into clouds full of lightning, which refresh the gods. Flowers fall from the spinning trees. Sea creatures are crushed. The trees catch fire from friction, and Indra puts the fire out with heavy rain. The juices and gums of the herbs run into the water, and the milky sea slowly thickens like butter. Still no nectar comes. The gods are exhausted, and Brahma asks Narayana to give them strength. They begin again.
Then the ocean starts giving things up. The moon comes first, and Lakshmi, and Soma, and the white horse, and the jewel Kaustubha, and then Dhanvantari rising with a white vessel of nectar in his hands, which the Asuras claim. Airavata the elephant appears, and Indra takes him. Somewhere in this tumult the poison appears: Kalakuta, so deadly that its fumes stupefy the three worlds. At Brahma's request Shiva swallows it to save creation, and his throat turns blue, so he is called Nilakantha.
Despairing, the Asuras prepare to fight the gods for Lakshmi and the nectar. Narayana takes the shape of an enchanting woman, and the Danavas and Daityas, dazzled, hand over the nectar to her. The Daityas and Danavas, armed, attack the gods anyway, but Vishnu, in his female form and with Nara beside him, tricks them and takes the amrita.
As the gods drink, a Danava named Rahu slips in disguised as a god. The Sun and the Moon recognise him and warn the gods, and Narayana cuts off Rahu's head with his discus. The head rises into the sky, and the text says its permanent enmity with the Sun and Moon explains the eclipses. Narayana puts down his woman's form and fights the Danavas, and a great battle breaks out on the shore of the salt sea. He sends his discus Sudarshana, which destroys Danavas by the thousand. The Danavas hurl mountains, and Nara breaks the rocks to dust with gold-headed arrows. The survivors flee into the earth and the sea.
The gods honour Mandara and return it to its place. They go back to heaven, and Indra and the others give the vessel of amrita to Narayana for safekeeping.
Told by Ugraśravas → ṛṣis
Bound to
Kadrū & Vinatā origin
Where this comes from
- CE · Mahabharata, Critical Edition 1.15-17 1.15-17
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section 17 as labelled (the white horse; Meru; Narayana's instruction)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XVIII (the churning; the treasures; the poison; the enchantress)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XIX (the battle for the nectar; Rahu)