Moving on to next episode, the Gods and demons continued
churning the ocean again, as a result of which few good things started to come
up. The first one was KaamaDhenu, a holy Cow which can bless all your wishes to
come true. It was taken away by the Rishis to be used in Yagnas. Then, a holy white
horse called “Uchchaisrava” appeared which was taken away by Bali, the king of
demons. Lord Indra didn’t stop him as ordered by Lord Vishnu. Then Airavat, the
holy and strong elephant came out the ocean. It was heavy, white and didn’t have
a staggered walk. Then came, Kalpa Vriksha, the holy tree which blossoms
scented flowers throughout the year and fulfills any wish. It was taken away by
Indra to his garden. Then came Apsarasas, the beautiful ladies about whom it
has been written that they had lightening body, beautifully curved breasts, thin
waist, tied and decorated hair and beautiful eyes. Not only here, in lot of
places and texts, when “female” has to be praised, these physical characteristics
would be described because they are the places which the opposite gender, the
males, get excited about. It signifies the importance of clothing and behavior of
female when they are watched by many men. This especially being a hot topic at
the time of this writing, but not in this post, I would leave it there. Then
came the moon who on permission from Lord Brahma, went back to its original
position, the head of Lord Siva.
Let us take a pause here. What happened now? Why all other
good perks are coming out of the ocean other than Amrit? Why things that were
already owned by Gods, like Airavat, the Moon etc were coming up from ocean again?
Let us get the answers to these questions in final part of the series.
After the moon,
తొలకారు మెరుగు కైవడి | With
the utmost beauty
దళతళమని మేరు మెరయ థగథగ మనుచున్
| and with a lightening creeper like body
గలుముల నీనెడు చూపుల | with
glittering eyes
చెలువంబుల మొదలి టెంకి సిరి పుట్టె
నృపా! | Oh Parikshit! Goddess Lakshmi
had born.
Goddess Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth, health and prosperity)
born as a daughter of the God of Ocean and sister of the moon, was gifted gem
studded throne by Lord Indra. Other gods gave what they could as gifts and the
required items for her holy bath. With the words of blessings from Rishis, the
diggajas, which are the eight elephants of the eight sides have sprinkled the
holy waters brought from various sacred rivers for her bath. Her father,
Samudra the god of ocean, from whom she came up, gave her silk saree and other
gods like Lord Brahma gifted jewelry. She was born as a teenager and immediately
Samudra had decided to do her marriage. He arranged a groom selection procedure
(for lack of better words). She is the mother of nature, mother of all worlds
and everyone/thing seem to be toys for her. She took the garland in her hand
and stood in the middle of all the gods to select the right groom for herself. She
is ever young and everyone except Lord Vishnu lost strength on
 |
| Source: www.dollsofindia.com |
When the energy (Lakshmi) combines with the matter (Vishnu),
there is motion and happenings everywhere. Else it is static. Heart is the
place for love and sympathy. When Lakshmi sat there, the love and sympathy
expanded all over the worlds and universe. All the wishes of all people there
were granted. This was an important incident. Lakshmi gives prosperity only
through her looks. When she was praised by the Gods and married her to Vishnu,
she blessed them and granted them what they lost. This was the only reason
behind the success of Gods in the rest of the story. Amrit came out only after
Lakshmi came out of the ocean. One question though, Lakshmi had always been
there with Vishnu, why in this story, she was born again and married him again?
This again relates to the similar questions that I asked in this part.
There was a beautiful situation that was described here in a
beautiful poem.
హరిచూచిన సిరి చూడదు | When
Hari sees her, Lakshmi doesn’t see him
సిరి చూచిన హరియు చూడ సిగ్గునుబొందున్
| When Lakshmi sees him, Vishnu was shy to see her.
హరియును సిరియును తమలో | To
make Lakshmi and Vishnu see each other
సరి చూపుల చూడమరుడు సందడి పెట్టెన్
| equally, god Manmadha forced them.
Now, Samudra became Lord Vishnu’s father-in-law and gifted
him “Kousthubha” which is the most precious gem ever known. He wore it near his
heart. Amidst other things like, srivathsa, the birth mark and pearl necklace
and basil garland and the Kousthubha, Goddess Lakshmi is sitting in His heart
happily as before. Getting happy with the celebration that happened, Lakshmi
saw the whole worlds, the gods with her eyes and all of them were blessed with
all wealth that they wished. However, the demons were an exception as they
stood aside waiting for these gods to come back for churning, laughing and
commenting them about their actions after birth of Lakshmi. They didn’t get the
blessings of the mother. Lesson learnt, although you do not have any interest
in what prayers others are doing, don’t criticize or make fun of them. This
concludes one of the important episodes of this story.
Next episode, the churning process started again. Finally,
after much effort, Dhanvanthari, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, came out of the
ocean with a vessel of Amrit in one hand and the “Ayurveda” in another hand.
This was how Ayurveda was born. On seeing it, all the demons went to him and grabbed
that Amrit vessel from Him while the gods were watching in despair and
disappointment. Demons had no intentions of sharing it with gods and started
running away with that vessel ditching the gods. Gods prayed Lord Vishnu, yet
again. He immediately called up Kali (at that time he was not ever present like
in Kali yug but comes only when he was called) and asked him to enter into the
minds of demons to create fighting within themselves. In other words, when
there is Kali, there is kalaham (fight).
As a result, stronger demons were grabbing the vessels from
weaker ones. Weaker ones started arguing that it should be shared with gods too
as they put equal effort in generating it. Some demons were shouting about it.
Finally everyone had strong desire to take drink all of it. Everyone were running
away from one another, fighting with each other and no one was actually trying
to drink it. This is how the demon mind would be.
At this time, Lord Vishnu incarnated in to Mohini, the
enchantress and appeared in the sight of demons. Why Mohini? When there is
anger, outrage and fight, there lies desire. Here the desire was turned into
lust because of Mohini. Let us see the details in next part with more analysis.
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