The Churning of the Ocean

Long ago, the gods had grown weak and weary. To make themselves strong again, they needed amrita, the nectar that gives endless life. But it lay hidden at the very bottom of the great Ocean of Milk, and to bring it up, the ocean would have to be churned, the way you churn butter, round and round. And the ocean was so vast that the gods could not churn it alone.

So they did something surprising. They made a bargain with the demons, their old enemies, to churn the ocean together and share what came up. For a churning rod, they used a whole mountain, Mount Mandara. For a churning rope, they used the great serpent Vasuki, winding him around the mountain. The gods took hold of one end and the demons the other, and they pulled, this way and that way, churning the ocean back and forth. (And Lord Vishnu, to keep the great mountain from sinking, became an enormous turtle and held it up on his back.)

And as they churned, wonders began to rise from the sea. A wish-granting cow. The goddess Lakshmi herself. The cool, beautiful moon. A magical tree, a flying horse, jewels and marvels beyond counting.

But then something dreadful rose up too: a poison, dark and deadly, so terrible it could destroy the whole of creation. Everyone shrank back in fear. And it was Lord Shiva who stepped forward. Without a word of complaint, he gathered up the deadly poison and drank it himself, to save them all. He held it in his throat, and it turned his throat a deep, shining blue, and from that day Shiva has been called Neelkanth, the blue-throated one.

And at the very last, slow and shining, the nectar of endless life rose up from the waves.