Part 1– Understanding the story of Churning the Milk(y) Ocean (క్షీరసాగర మధనం, क्षीरसागर मधन)

Shree Gurubhyonamah

[This is a DEVOTIONAL – Purana - story and did not happen on Earth. This is not a story I created but is taken from Maharshi Vyasa's Srimad Bhagavata Purana. This is One story that explains, teaches and make us think about many things and I thought it's a good idea to put this story as a blog post. Before I start, this story need not be treated as a story told for a religion but to be treated as story needed for every human being who trust in God in any form/religion. Heaven/hell, Angels/Devils/Deamons etc are some of common things found in most of the religious practices. It has few things to learn for people who do not trust in God as well. Also this story has few sections that praise Lord Vishnu and encourage others to do it. It's up to you if you do not want to read those. You can take that as part of story.
I am going to refer to few Telugu poems from the Telugu version of Srimad Bhagavata written by the great writer Sri Pothana. The reason being they are such wonderful verses and I will try to translate the same to English without losing the essence. I am grateful to my gurus because of whom I came to know this story. Any mistakes in the story are because of my ignorance.]


 
In this age, when you go to someone and tell them – once upon a time it happened that the gods and daemons under the leadership of Lord Vishnu churned the ocean of milk (What!) and the gods finally got the nectar of immortality, in a word, Amrit, after consuming which the Gods defeated the daemons and ruled all the worlds – what is the reaction? J Most probable answer will be, what the heck! Leave us and go away!

Why did the great saints and Maharishis give the stories like this to people? Even amidst the generation of mobile apps, how these stories are able to make some space and still breathe somewhere? The reason is simple. These stories, apart from providing the necessary entertainment, they inherently and subconsciously induce the right way of living and consequently the right way to attain salvation. So it's always good to read & understand these stories by actually 'feeling' them as if you were in that scene. In that way, there will be lot of questions that arise to which we start searching for answers. Each answer gives whole lot of information that actually touches every part of sanatana dharma.

Enough talking and let me tell what I am about to write here. This story is quite lengthy and so I am going to write this in parts. However, I am going to write the story as a brief first and then, I will provide the things to learn, the analysis and understandings of each scene that has been told in the story. I will try to make it interesting as possible. Finally, I will conclude with how we should understand the story on the whole from philosophical and spiritual perspective. So here goes the story first.

During the initial years of 7^th Manvantara which is Vaivasvatha Manvantara (click here to read more Hindu time chronology), a great war happened between the Gods and Daemons. The gods were led by Lord Indra and they won the war. While going back to the heaven after winning the war, Maharshi Doorvaasa met Lord Indra and congratulated him on winning the war. Maharshi Doorvasa gave him a flower garland as a gracious gift which was used while worshipping the Almighty. But Lord Indra has taken it and put on the hump of the elephant that he is sitting on. In other words, he was careless in accepting it and was self-proud that he won the war. The elephant took it away with its trunk and crushed it under its feet. Seeing this, Maharshi got angry and cursed him by saying you would lose all your wealth and prosperity because of your arrogance in accepting the God's gift.

Consequently, there was again a war with daemons. Now Lord Indra lost the war and all the wealth. They went to Lord Brahma with sad faces and confessed his mistake. Lord Brahma was happy that he confessed and asked everyone to pray Lord Vishnu, the Brahman. Lord Vishnu appeared before them and all the gods including Brahma praised and prayed him. Being happy with these words, Lord Vishnu told them, "you would get back whatever you had lost and also more than that, you would get eternal by drinking Amrit. I would advise about how to get Amrit. Have a peace talk with Daemons and both of you put the mountain named Mandara in the ocean of milk. Bring Vasuki, the king of snakes and tie it to middle of Mandara Mountain. Both you and daemons start churning the mountain in the ocean by pulling Vasuki head and tail alternatively. This generates, haalahalam, the dangerous venom of all times and many other good things from the ocean. Leave them and wait for Amrit to come up. I will help you when needed".

On listening this, the Gods tied up the Daemons and made a deal to give a share of Amrit. They started to bring the mountain towards the shore of the Milk Ocean but they could not do it. They prayed Lord Vishnu who, with his Garuda, took it easily and put it on the shores of the ocean of milk. The Gods again made a deal with Vasuki and tied it to the middle of the mountain. They put the mountain slowly into the ocean with the daemons on the head side of Vasuki and the Gods the tail side of Vasuki. Since there is no base, the mountain slowly dropped into the ocean. This is when Lord Vishnu took the avatar of Kurma, the gigantic tortoise and made sure the mountain falls on its back at the ocean bed. Then, it slowly swam up and formed as a base for the churning to happen successfully.

Having celebrated it, the Gods and Daemons started the churning again when the HalaHalam started to spread all over the worlds killing many. All the Gods left to Mount Kailash to request help of Lord Siva. Siva listened to their request and told his wife Parvathi that he was willing to help them. Surprisingly, Parvati agreed to it keeping in mind it is dangerous venom and can end his life. Lord Siva made the haalahalam like a small ball and swallowed it. He made it sure it would not reach the stomach where all the worlds exist but stays at throat. It showed up on the skin of the throat like a blue diamond decorated beautifully on the neck of the Lord.

Image Source : dampproofing.rssing.com

Thanking Lord Siva, they started the churning again which started producing Iravath (the powerful elephant), the KalpaVriksham (the holy tree), the Kamadhenu (The holy cow), horse, Apsarasas (the beautiful women), the moon which went back to Lord Siva's head and Goddess Lakshmi. After seeing the gods prayed her and married her to Lord Vishnu who was opted by her as her husband. After getting married, she went into and stayed at the heart of Lord Vishnu showering peace, prosperity, health and wealth to all the children, the Gods. The Lord Samudra who is the king of oceans gave a precious diamond called Koustubh as gift to his son-in-law. Note that the Daemons were only waiting for Amrit. They churned the ocean again and an incarnation of Lord Vishnu named Dhanvantari came up from the ocean and he had Ayurveda (that's where it came from) on one hand and Amrit on the other hand.

The daemons pulled away the Amrit from his hand and started fighting between themselves for drinking it because of the illusion created by Lord Vishnu. While the gods were sad about not getting it, they prayed Lord Vishnu again. Then he took the avatar of Mohini, the enchantress. She was the most beautiful lady in the universe and all the daemons wanted her. So in the craze to get her, they wanted her to distribute the Amrit equally to everyone.

Image source : www.aboutfestivalsofindia.com

She managed to pull Gods also into the picture and made them sit in 2 rows. One row there were gods and in the other Daemons. She started pouring the liquid in the hands of Gods first and on the other hand showed off her physical beauty to the Daemons same time. The daemons did not bother about the Amrit getting over but they were completely submerged in the "maya" created by Mohini. However, one of the daemon named, Rahu, sat in between the Sun god and moon God in disguise. He was identified as the wrong one but still she gave amrit to him. As soon as he drank it, Lord Vishnu cut his throat with his weapon, Sudarshan chakra. So his head remained eternal and stayed as a planet, taking revenge on Sun and moon in the form of eclipse till date.

Finally, the Gods got Amrit while the Daemons could not. Mohini disappeared. The daemons could not digest the betrayal and they had a war. The gods won the war and they got their riches back. Lord Siva enquired about what happened after he took the venom, his servants told him about the story of Mohini. So he along with his wife Parvati went to see Lord Vishnu. He requested Lord Vishnu to disguise in the form of Mohini again. Lord Vishnu did that and Lord Siva had completely fallen in love with Mohini. Forgetting about the presence of his wife and his servants, he ran behind Mohini out of desire and at a stage, his ejaculated his sperm which fell on earth and formed as Gold and silver. He then came out the "maya" created by Mohini. Lord Vishnu came back to his original form and congratulated Lord Siva that he only could stand outside of the maya created by Mohini.

 
This is the entire story. Let us analyse this story in detail about why all this happened. There is a need to understand whole lot of things. If you come out of the story mode and read it again asking why is it like this and why is it like that, this whole story is a big mystery. Let us continue in part 2.

 
……….. [Watch out for Part 2 to start understanding the story in greater sense]