With the mountain in place, the snake wrapped snugly around the mountain, and the Asuras and Devas all set up, there was nothing to do except churn the ocean. The Asuras grabbed the front of the snake and held on with all of their strength. The Devas held onto the back of the snake so tightly that their hands began to strain even before churning. As the Asuras began to pull, the mountain began to slowly dig into the earth at the bottom of the ocean. The Asuras heaved as whole sections began to fracture because the snake was suffocating the mountain. The Asuras eased up and the Devas began to pull back creating mass waves showering the land and digging the mountain even farther into earth. As this cycle continued, the waves began to get bigger and bigger and both sides grew so exhausted they could hardly speak. Their hands bled, muscles weakened, and minds grew weary, but regardless, they continued.
The churning continued seemingly endlessly, and sometime in the midst of the churning, the snake breathed out a poison so strong that it weakened the Asuras to the point where they could hardly churn anymore. This was the plan. Remember when I said that Vishnu favored the Devas? He knew that the snake would grow tired and release that poison from his mouth, so he made sure that the Asuras were the ones weakened by it and not the Devas. Despite the endless churning, the poison released, and the exhaustion from both sides, the churning continued. After what felt like an eternity, the earth began to rumble. The rumbling grew and grew until the noise alone was deafening, even for me. Suddenly a new poison shot up out of the earth, and it was so powerful that it could destroy all of creation. In an instant, Shiva, one of the most powerful gods, ate it. This is by far one of the most noble things I have ever seen. The poison could have destroyed Shiva. Before Shiva had a chance to swallow it, his consort Parvati grabbed his throat and forced it out of Shiva's mouth. If this had not been done, Samudra Manthan could have destroyed all of creation.
Almost immediately after the poison was destroyed, the earth began to rumble again. The Asuras and Devas were terrified of what might come up, but had no choice but to continue. Divine objects began to fly out of the water and gods began to claim the objects as their own. There were divine elephants which Indra claimed, herbs that the Asuras and Devas claimed, and to be frank, I could be here all night describing everything that exploded out of the ocean. When it had seemed like there was no reason left to churn, Dhanvantari, the divine physician, emerged with the Nectar of Immortality. Everything stopped. The Asuras and Devas looked at each other, dropped everything, and began to fight one of the most fierce battles I have witnessed on this earth. There was no truce. It was the Asuras versus the Devas and both sides were doing everything in their power to destroy the other. As quickly as the fighting began, Garuda, a divine bird, grabbed the pot of the nectar and flew it away for safe keeping.
The battle continued for days. Both sides were exhausted, but there was no choice but to fight until one side had the nectar. The Asuras began to gain ground on the Devas. The Devas were wounded left and right, and in one last-ditch attempt to obtain the nectar, the Devas approached Vishnu and begged for help. Vishnu agreed. A trap set was set so the Devas could take the nectar and drink it before the Asuras even realized what their plan was. To do this, Vishnu disguised himself as a damsel and approached the Asuras. The Devas worked fast for this plan to succeed. Right as the Asuras spoke to the damsel, Garuda came down with the Nectar and dropped it at the feet of the Devas. The Devas quickly distributed it among themselves. Just as the Devas thought they had won, one Asura disguised as a Deva drank the Nectar. As the Nectar was traveling down his throat, a Deva noticed that the Asura was not one of them and decapitated him with a discus. The Devas had won the battle. Since that point, I have watched closely as both sides have continued to fight throughout the ages, but it seems that nowadays, the Devas ultimately have had the upper hand.
Author's note:
This part of the Samudura Mathan story revolves around the actual churning of the ocean and the battle that subsequently took place. I did not change many of the original details in the stories that I have read because of how detailed the stories are to begin with. There are a lot of moving parts and changing one detail could have led to changing many of the other details. The Churning of the Ocean is one of the first stories that involves many of the other important gods, characters, and different divine objects that are churned up. One of the best examples of that is Indra's elephants. Another great example of the importance of the stories is the god Indra. He is the first Deva that instigated Samudura Mathan and he has shown up in many of the Indian Epics read throughout the course of the semester. This importance for the rest of Indian Epics is another reason I decided not to change many parts of the story. Purusha is still the narrator for this story, but it was difficult to find any part of the story where he could put in his input. If I had decided to put Purusha more into the story, I think that it would have made the story a lot more convoluted. I also decided to keep the same picture as before to keep the story flowing from the first part. I also used identical sources.
Bibliography:
Title: Samudra Manthan
Authors: Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia
Title: Good-deva-bad-asura divide misleading
Authors: The Times of India
Source: Devdutt
Photo: