A great crowd had gathered. In a circle, in the middle, were the gods, mingling with the ṛṣis. The Aśvins kept to one side, like travelers who have happened upon a scene by chance. The ceremony began, very slowly. The Aśvins watched the celebrants. There was a familiar face among the ṛṣis. But who was it? He resembled themselves, with a more solemn expression. “Cyavana…,” they both whispered. The rite went on. They saw Cyavana lift a cup. They heard his clear voice: “This is for the Aśvins…” There was a sudden whirlwind. Indra was on his feet, furiously tearing the cup from Cyavana’s hands: “I do not recognize this cup…,” he said. Clouds of dust made it impossible to see what was going on. “Who dares to wrench the cup of soma from a ṛṣi?” boomed a voice. The Maruts shook their spears. In the uproar, Agni went to Indra and said: “It’s not in our interests to provoke the ṛṣis. In the end, they are better than we are. We were born of them. Swallow your anger.” But even had they wanted to, there wasn’t much the gods could do. Summoned up by the ṛṣis, Mada, the demon, was intoxicating them. Nothing was clear anymore, in sky or on earth. Eyes lowered, Indra stood still. The whirlwind settled. The Aśvins found themselves beside Cyavana, who had the cup in his hand again. Thus the Aśvins at last brought the soma to their lips. Then they looked around: the gods had slunk off. “That was the last time that men and gods drank the soma together.” And one day someone would add the gloss “In ancient times they drank together visibly, now they do so in the invisible.”
X
The soma has been identified with many plants over the course of time. One thing is clear: the sap of the soma was inebriating. That substance was sensation: the one quantity that was quality. Everything depended on its being won or lost. There had been a time when even the gods didn’t have the soma. And they called it by another name: amṛta, the “immortal.” But they had yet to find it, to discover it, to touch the substance that was free from death, and that freed from death. All children of Prajāpati, though divided into the opposing ranks of the Devas and the Asuras, they agreed that for this once they could join forces, for this one undertaking, from which all others descend: the churning of the ocean.
The ocean seethed. The waves foamed like madmen in all directions as a vast pendulum plowed the waters. Torn from its roots, bristling with trees and sharp rocks, Mount Mandara thrashed the liquid mass like the beater in a churn. All the juices, the resins, the lymph of the plants flowed into the water along with liquid gold and cataracts of gems. All essences streamed together into the marine desert. Meanwhile the huge carcasses of deep-sea creatures hitherto unseen by any eye were driven up from the depths by the ceaseless motion of Mandara, who braced himself on the back of the giant turtle Akūpāra, the only creature to have remained impassive in the tumult. Looking closely, you could see a sash slithering around the lush grass of Mandara’s flanks. Or was it a thick rope? It was a snake, Vāsuki. With the Devas gripping its tail and the Asuras its head, it was being tugged back and forth to keep Mount Mandara churning beneath the waters, while from its mouth rose fumes that swirled around the Asuras and muddled their minds. But then it was they themselves, proud firstborn that they were, who had insisted on holding Vāsuki’s head, because the head is always the noblest part of anything.
“All this,” thought the Devas, “recalls the beginnings of tapas, that first friction in the mind from which every marvel is born.” But what was to appear this time? Or would anything appear? The Devas were exhausted. Like slaves at their oars, they held on to Vāsuki’s scales, just able to see in a steamy distance the grimaces of their eternal enemies, the Asuras, whom for this one undertaking they had accepted as allies. “When the stakes are high, one must be ready to make allies of one’s enemies, like the snake with the mouse,” Viṣṇu had exhorted. One must risk the ultimate, if one wants to gain the amṛta, the “immortal.”
At that time the Devas and Asuras were still too alike. Coarse, greedy, hot-tempered, their main ambition was to destroy each other. And to escape death. But death struck them down just the same. After each gory encounter with the Asuras, the Devas would count their corpses. They thought: “One day there’ll be none of us left to do the counting.” Then they were plunged into melancholy. And roused themselves in fury when their spies came to tell them what they had seen in the camp of the Asuras. There too the dead, many of them disfigured, were piled high under the vultures’ gaze. But then Kāvya Uśanas, chief priest of the Asuras, would come down and with a calm wave of the hand resurrect them one by one. To him, and to him alone, Rudra had one day imparted the saṃjīvanī vidyā, the “science of resurrection.” Thus the place teemed with Asuras. You couldn’t say they didn’t know death, because they were often killed and spent some time in death’s kingdom, suffering like anybody else, but then they came back to life, with no memory, no knowledge. They were merely shot through by a long and invisible wound: the enduring sensation of having already been killed. They suffered from that — but then they would laugh wildly when they looked toward the camp of the Devas, where the dead would never stand up and walk again. All the same, even the Asuras, who never died a final death, were eager to keep death at bay. Hence, and for just this once, they agreed to ally themselves with the Devas. Like their enemies, the Asuras were eager to conquer the amṛta.
But here came the crucial uncertainty: would immortality become substance? The Devas and Asuras knew that they were involved in the first opus alchymicum. But what if their material were to remain opaque? What if the ocean did not yield up the “sweet wave”? Haggard and exhausted, they raised their eyes to find a splash of opalescence spreading out between Mount Mandara and the ocean. Suspended in the glow, like idols without pedestals, like actors who come forward one after another to greet the public, like bright rings in a bracelet, like painted figures on the breeze, like amulets strung across the torso of the cosmos, appeared the ratnas, the “gems,” sovereignty’s procession. First came Sun, then Moon — and then you could see the shadow of Śiva’s outstretched arm and hand encircling the white sickle like a slim girl and gathering it into his plaited hair, where it remains to this day, a shining clip. Next came the Apsaras, the waters, modeling the eddies in enchanting bodies dripping with shimmers of jewels. Both Devas and Asuras were equally avid for them, but they made no move: they knew that the Apsaras are living coinage, they pass through every hand. Not suitable as brides. Then came Uccaiḥśravas, the White Horse, swift as thought, who dazzled them with a toss of his mane. And there were more gems forming in the light. In white robes, fragrant and still, Śrī appeared majestic, then sank down on Visnu’s breast.