The Story Of Samudra Manthan: The Churning Of The Ocean

Samudra Manthan is one of the famous Hindu mythology. You can find this mythology mentions in Bhagavata Purana, the Mahabharata, and the Vishnu Purana.

The meaning of the ‘Samudra Manthan’ is the churning of the ocean.

The meaning of Smaudra is an ocean, and Manthan is churning.

The story tells that, King of Gods, Indra gets cursed by the sage Durvasa. The Great sage Durvasa once offered the special garland to Dev Indra. The Dev Indra accepted the garland and thrown it on the tusk of his elephant Airawat. The elephant gets annoyed by the smell of the garland and trampled the garland on the floor. By seeing this incident, the sage Durvasa, get furious and cursed the Dev Indra and all deva to lose their all power, strength and, Fortune.

Due to this, Devraj Indra and Devs began to lose all battle against the demons, and King demon Bali gained control of the universe.

The helpless Indra knows that only Baikunthanath Vishnu can tell the solution for this problem. So Dev Indra with all gods reached to Lord Vishnu, praised him, and narrated his calamity.

Lord Vishnu said in a gentle voice that this is a time of disaster for you. The Demons are getting uplifted, and Devs are getting deprecated. But you have to spend this crisis period in a friendly manner.

Lord Vishnu said to Devs. If you want to regain your power, then you have to churn the oceans (Kshira Sagar) and bring out the magical nectar (amrita), and after drinking this magical nectar (amrita) can only help you to regain your powers. This famous churning is known as Samudra Manthan.

Devs were powerless, so they need the help of demons to accomplish this big task.

Lord Vishnu said to Devraj Indra accept every condition of demons for this task and take out your work in the end. By drinking (Amrita), you will become immortal, and you have the power to kill the demons.

According to God’s orders, Indra told Bali about the elimination of nectar from the churning of the ocean. The demon king Bali compromised with Devraj Indra and the sea was ready for churning.

The Mandarachal mountain adopted as a churning rod and, Vasuki (the King of Serpents) became the churning rope. But, as the pole installed into the water, it kept slipping into the depths of the ocean. So to stop this, Lord Vishnu instantly transformed himself into a tortoise and placed the mountain on his back. The Vishnu as the tortoise was his second avatar and called ‘Kurma.’

Lord Narayana exerted demonic power in the demons and devoutly power in the gods and given deep sleep to Vasuki Nag too so that he shouldn’t suffer.

The unintelligence demons thought that there would be some benefit in catching Vasuki Nag from his mouth and told to Devs that we are not inferior in power to anyone, we will take the place of a mouth.

The churning of the sea began, and the Mandarachal mountain began to roam on the broad back of the Lord Kurma.

The first item which comes out from the churning of the sea was the poison of water.

All the gods and demons started burning due to the flame of that poison, and their radiance began to fade for this, Devs and Demons prayed to Lord Shankar. On their prayer, Lord Mahadev kept the poison on his palm and drank it, But Mahadev has not drunk the poison down from the gorge.

Due to the drinking of Halahala poison, Shiva’s gorge turned blue. Therefore the Lord Mahadev is called Neelkanth.

A little amount of poison dripped from Lord Mahadev’s palm on the earth, which was drunk by poisonous animals like snakes, scorpions, etc.

After consuming the poison by Lord Shankar, the ocean churning started again.

The second treasure which emerged out from the ‘Samudra Manthan’ was Kamadhenu cow, which was kept by the sages.

Then, a (Uchchaihshravas) seven-headed flying horse came out, which was kept by Daityaraja Bali. After that white elephant, ‘Airavat’ came out, which was taken by Devraj Indra, and after ‘Airavat,’ a very precious gem Kaustubhamani emerged, which was kept by the Lord Vishnu.

Then, Kalpavriksha came out, and Apsara named Rambha appeared and, all these two kept in heaven. Next, the Goddess Lakshmi came out from churning the sea. Goddess Lakshmi herself accepted to Lord Vishnu and married to him.

After that, Varuni appeared in the form of a girl whom the demons received.

Then, one after another, many things come out like Parijat tree, Shell, etc. and finally, Dhanvantari Vaidya appeared with the nectar.

Violent fighting gets started between devs and demons after seeing the Dhanvantri with nectar.

The demons snatched the nectar from Dhanvantari’s hand and started fighting for it among themselves. (When the demon was snatching the amrita pot from Dhanvantari’s hand, the few drops of nectar get fell to the four different places: Allahabad Prayag at (Uttar Pradesh), Haridwar at (Uttrakhand), Ujjain at (Madhya Pradesh) and Nasik at (Maharashtra). Therefore Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years in these places.)

Due to the curse of Durvasa Muni on Devs. They didn’t have enough power to fight among demons and to take that nectar, so they stood frustrated and watching them fight among themselves.

Seeing the despair of the Gods, Lord Vishnu instantly took the form of beautiful woman Mohini and reached out to the demons fighting among themselves.

Seeing the Viswamohini avatar of Lord Vishnu ‘Mohini,’ Devas and Demons get fascinated and looked at him again and again.

When the demons saw that Mohini coming towards them, they forgot all their quarrel and started staring at her beauty.

The demon said, “O beautiful! Who are you?

It seems that to deal with our dispute, we are punishing ourselves. Come good luck! You are welcome. Make us drink this sweet with your lotus.

Vishnu, in the form of Vishwamohini, said, “O Devs and Demons! Both of you are brothers due to being the son of Maharishi Kashyap, yet you fight with each other.

I am an arbitrary woman. Wise people never believe such a woman, then how are you, believing in me? It is good that everyone should together meet and drink Amritpan.

On hearing such proverbial words of Vishwamohini, Demons got more confidence in him. He said, “Beautiful! We have full faith in you. We will consume Amritpana the same way you share.

Demon provides nectar pot to Mohini to distribute the nectar among all.

Vishwamohini took the nectar pot and asked the Devs and the demons to sit in separate rows.

After that, the demons plastered with their sarcasm, and Mohini began to drunk nectar to the Devs.

The demons became so obsessed with their sarcasm that they forgot to drink nectar.

The demon Rahu get understood the trick of Lord Vishnu. He sat down among the gods after making the form of a deity and put the received nectar in his mouth.

When the nectar gets reached in Rahu gorge, the moon and the sun called out and said that he is Rahu Demon.

Hearing this, Lord Vishnu immediately separated Rahu’s head from the neck with his Sudarshan Chakra. Due to the effect of nectar, his head and torso became two planets named Rahu and Ketu and, they get established in space.

They are the one who makes eclipse to sun and moon due to their hates.

In this way, Lord Vishnu gets disappeared from, there, by making drinking nectar to the gods.

As soon as the Lord Vishnu was disappeared, the plight of the demons ended.

Demons become very angry and started attacking the Devs.

The violent Devasur war started in which Devraj Indra defeated Daityaraj Bali and withdrew his Indralok.

OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VASUDEVAYA NAMAH.