What is the samudra manthan?

Durvasa was walking the earth. He was a rishi with a temper everyone knew about, and that day he was in one of his fits when he saw a nymph of the air with a garland in her hands, made of flowers from the trees of heaven, and the whole forest smelt of it. He asked her for it, she gave it to him, and he put it on his head and walked on. Then he saw Indra coming towards him, the king of the gods, riding on his elephant Airavat with the other gods around him.

Durvasa took the garland off his head and threw it to Indra. Indra caught it. And instead of putting it on, he hung it on the elephant’s forehead. Airavat’s eyes were dull with drink. He smelt the flowers, took the garland in his trunk, and threw it on the ground.

Durvasa watched it land in the dirt and turned on Indra. You are drunk on your own power, he said. I gave you a garland that was the home of Shri herself, and you did not bow, you did not put it on your head, you did not even thank me. So your rule over the three worlds is finished. Indra got down off the elephant and begged him, and Durvasa would not hear it. Other rishis may forgive, he said, but I am Durvasa, and I do not. And he walked away.

From that day the three worlds went grey and the plants withered. Nobody offered sacrifices, nobody kept their vows, nobody gave anything to anyone. The asuras saw it and attacked. The gods, with nothing left in them, lost, and ran to Brahma, who took them to the shore of the sea of milk, and there they prayed to Vishnu until he showed himself.

Vishnu smiled at them. I will give you back your strength, he said, but you will do what I tell you. Make peace with the asuras, throw every kind of healing herb into the sea of milk, take Mount Mandara for a churning rod and the snake Vasuki for a rope, and churn the ocean together for the amrit. Tell the asuras they will get an equal share. I will see to it that they do the work and never taste it.

Here is the churning, the way the Bhagavata Purana tells it.

Indra went to Bali, the king of the asuras, who was sitting on his throne with his generals round him, and spoke to him softly, and said everything Vishnu had told him to say. Bali agreed. So did the other asura kings. Gods and asuras shook on it, and the first thing they did together was go and pull up Mount Mandara.

It was a mountain of gold, and they were proud of their strength, and they tore it out of the ground shouting and set off for the sea with it on their shoulders. They did not get far. Gods and asuras alike gave out under the weight and dropped it, and as it fell it crushed a great many of them. They stood there with broken arms and broken necks and lost heart. That is when Vishnu came, on Garuda. He looked at the crushed and they got up unhurt. Then he picked the mountain up with one hand, as if it were nothing, set it on Garuda’s back, and flew it to the sea.

They asked Vasuki, the king of the snakes, and promised him a share of the amrit for his trouble, and wound him round the mountain like a rope round a churning stick. Vishnu took hold of the head end and the gods lined up behind him. The asuras stopped. We are not holding the tail, they said. We know the Vedas, we come from good families, and the tail of a snake is a dirty, unlucky thing. Vishnu smiled, let go of the head, and went round to the tail with the gods.

Then they churned. And the mountain, with nothing under it, sank straight down into the sea.

They stood looking at the water, all their work gone in a moment, and their faces went pale. And Vishnu, in the shape of an enormous tortoise, went down under the water and came up with the mountain on his back. It was as big as a continent, and as the churning started again and the mountain spun on his shell he lay there and enjoyed it, like someone having his back scratched.

Fire and smoke were pouring out of Vasuki’s eyes and nostrils. The asuras at his head got the worst of it, and the flames took the colour out of them, like trees when a forest burns. The gods at the tail got the smoke, and Vishnu sent clouds to rain on them and cool sea winds to blow through them. He put a hand on top of the mountain to steady it. He was in the tortoise under it. He was in the gods and the asuras, giving them strength, and he was in the snake. And still no amrit came. So he took hold of the rope himself and churned, with the mountain on his own back, and the whole sea shook, and the fish and the crocodiles and the sea snakes were thrown about in it.

The first thing that came out of the sea was poison.

It was called Halahal, and it came up out of the churned water and spread in every direction at once, up and down and everywhere, burning as it went, and there was no getting away from it. The gods and every creature that lived ran to Shiva. He was sitting on Kailash with Parvati beside him, and they fell down in front of him and begged him to save them.

Shiva looked at what was happening and turned to Parvati. Look at this, Bhavani, he said. Look at what this poison is doing to them. When people are in trouble it is the strong who have to help, and a good man will give his life for others if he has to. I am going to drink it. Let good come to every creature from this.

Parvati knew what he could do, and she let him. He took the poison in his palm and drank it. It stayed in his throat and turned it blue, and instead of harming him it became the mark he is known by. The little that ran off his palm as he drank was gathered up by the scorpions and the snakes and the poisonous plants, which is where they got theirs.

Once the poison was gone the gods and the asuras were glad, and they churned harder than before, and the sea began to give things up.

Surabhi came first, the cow of plenty, the one everyone calls Kamdhenu, and the rishis took her for the milk and ghee their sacrifices need. Then a horse as white as the moon, Ucchaishravas, and Bali wanted him, so he was Bali’s. Then Airavat the elephant, white, with four tusks. Then a red jewel, Kaustubh, which Vishnu took for his chest. Then the Parijat tree, which gives whatever anyone asks it for. Then the apsaras, in gold and silk, who went to live in heaven. And then Lakshmi.

She came up out of the water and lit up every direction at once, and every god and every asura wanted her the moment they saw her. Indra brought her a seat. The rivers came in person with gold pots of water for her bath, and the elephants of the four directions poured it over her while she stood holding a lotus. The ocean gave her two yellow silks. Then she took a garland of blue lotuses in her hand and walked through the crowd to choose a husband, her anklets ringing.

She looked at all of them and none would do. The one who had done the most penance had a temper. The one with wisdom could not let go of things. Indra could not even guard his own throne. One was strong but would grow old, one had left the world and would not look at her. And one was everything at once and did not need her at all. She chose that one. She put the garland round Vishnu’s neck and stood by him, and he gave her his chest to live on, and there she has been ever since.

The asuras, who had watched her walk past them, went sour. Then Varuni came up, the goddess of wine, a girl with lotus eyes, and Vishnu let them have her.

And then, as they went on churning, a man rose out of the sea.

He was young and broad-chested, with long strong arms and reddish eyes, blue-dark like a rain cloud, in yellow, with jewelled earrings and curly hair, and he walked like a lion. He was Dhanvantari, the one who gave the world medicine, and in his hands he carried a jar. It was full to the brim with amrit.

The asuras did not wait. They grabbed the jar out of his hands and ran.

The gods went back to Vishnu with nothing, and he told them not to lose heart. I will set the asuras against each other, he said, and I will take a form they cannot resist. And already, among the asuras, it had started, every one of them shouting at once. I should have it first. No, me. Not you. The weaker ones were shouting that the gods had done half the work and had a right to half the amrit, and the stronger ones were holding the jar and not listening.

Into that quarrel walked a woman.

Vishnu had made her out of his own power to deceive, and there was nothing in the three worlds like her. The asuras stopped shouting. Who are you, they said. Where have you come from, whose daughter are you? We are all brothers here, all sons of Kashyap, and look at us, fighting like enemies over one jar. Be fair and share it out between us so that we stop.

She laughed at them. What are you doing trusting a loose woman like me, she said, you, the sons of a great rishi? A wise man never trusts a woman. And they liked her all the more for it, and laughed, and put the jar in her hands.

She smiled and said one thing. I will share it out. But only if you all agree, here and now, to accept whatever I do with it, right or wrong. And the asuras, who could not see past her face, said yes.

She told them to fast, and bathe, and put on new clothes, and had them all sit down in a hall hung with garlands and lit with lamps, facing east on seats of grass, the gods and the asuras together. And she walked in with the jar in her hands, slowly, her anklets ringing, and every one of them sat and stared at her.

She sat the gods in one row and the asuras in another. Then she went along the gods’ row, and with a smile here and a glance there and a word to the asuras to keep them waiting, she gave the gods the amrit, all of it, and the asuras sat and watched her do it and never said a word. They had given their word. They could not fight with a woman. And they wanted her too much to spoil it.

One of them was not in the asuras’ row. His name was Rahu, and he had dressed as a god and slipped into the gods’ row between the sun and the moon, and when she came to him he took the amrit and drank.

The sun and the moon knew who he was and were afraid of him, and they gave him away with a look. In that instant the discus came, and took Rahu’s head off at the neck. The amrit had not reached the body, and the body fell down dead. But the head had drunk, and it lived, and Vishnu gave it a place in the sky among the planets. It has never forgotten the sun and the moon. On the new moon and the full moon, when it can, it goes for them and swallows them, and that is an eclipse.

When the gods had drunk almost all of it, Vishnu took his own shape back and stood there, and the asuras sat and looked at him with their mouths open.

This is what Nashik tells about the jar.

The churning threw up the poison first, and Shiva drank it and became Nilkanth, the blue-throated. It threw up Kamdhenu and the horse. And then the jar of amrit came up in Dhanvantari’s hands, and Jayanta, Indra’s son, saw it and snatched it and ran. Shukracharya, the guru of the asuras, saw him go and gave the alarm, and the asuras went after him. He ran for twelve days. A day of the gods is a year of ours, so he ran for twelve years. On the way he put the jar down to rest at four places — Haridwar, Prayag, Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, and Ujjain — and at each of the four, at that moment, the sun and the moon and the planets stood in a particular pattern in the sky. Brihaspati kept the jar safe through all of it, with the help of the sun, of Shani his son, and of the moon, and it never broke. And where the jar was put down, and where a little of the amrit spilled as it went down, is where the Kumbh Mela comes.

At Nashik the place where the drops fell is Ramkund, and why the Kumbh comes to Nashik tells that in full. That is why the Kumbh comes to those four places, and the twelve-year cycle says why it comes round to each of them once in about twelve years. What brings it round to Nashik is Jupiter going into Leo, and Why it is called Simhastha says how that works.