The Ocean of Milk in Hindu mythology is the place where 13 precious treasures were lost. The gods and demons worked together for a millennium churning the sea to free them.^[1] It is spoken of in the Samudra manthan chapter of the Puranas, a body of ancient sanskrit legends. In Hinduism, Samudra manthan (Devanagari: समुद्र मंथन) or The churning of the ocean of milk is one of the most famous episodes in the Puranas and is celebrated in a major way every twelve years in the festival known as Kumbha Mela. ... Purana (Sanskrit: , meaning tales of ancient times) is the name of an ancient Indian genre (or a group of related genres) of Hindu or Jain literature (as distinct from oral tradition). ... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is an old Indo-Aryan language from the Indian Subcontinent, the classical literary language of the Hindus of India[1], a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ...

Depiction at Angkor Wat

A bas-relief at the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia includes a depiction of devas and asuras working together to stir up the Ocean of Milk in an attempt to free the precious objects lost within, including the elixir of immortality called amrita. The scheme, masterminded by Vishnu, was to wrap the serpent Vasuki around Mount Mandara, and then to rotate the mountain and to churn the surrounding sea in the manner of a gigantic food processor, by alternately pulling on the serpent's head and then on his tail. ^[2] Bas relief is a method of sculpting which entails carving or etching away the surface of a flat piece of stone or metal. ... Aerial view of Angkor Wat The main entrance to the temple proper, seen from the eastern end of the Naga causeway Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat) is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. ... A Deva, in Hinduism, is a deity, controlling forces of nature such as fire, air, etc. ... In Hindu mythology, the Asura are a group of power-seeking deities, sometimes misleadingly referred to as demons. ... In Hindu mythology and Buddhist mythology, Amrita is the drink of the gods, which grants them immortality. ... Vishnu (IAST , Devanagari ), (honorific: Sri Vishnu) also known as Narayana is the Supreme Being or Ultimate Reality for Vaishnavas and a manifestation of Brahman in the Advaita or Smarta traditions. ... Vasuki is a naga, or one of the serpents of Hindu mythology. ... Mount Mandara is a mountain which appears in the Samudra manthan episode in the Hindu Puranas. ...

External Links

• Photos of the churning as depicted in the art of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom in Cambodia.
• The story of the churning as told in the epic Mahabharata, here in the online English translation by Kisari Mohan Ganguli at sacred-texts.com.
• The story of the churning as told in the epic Ramayana, here in the online English verse translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith at sacred-texts.com.
• The story of the churning as told in the Vishnu Purana, here in the online English translation by Horace Hayman Wilson at sacred-texts.com.

Manuscript illustration of the Battle of Kurukshetra The (Devanagari: ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . ... For the television series by Ramanand Sagar, see Ramayan (TV series). ... The Vishnu Purana is one of the oldest of the Puranas (dating to maybe the 5th century), containing some 23,000 shlokas, presented as a dialogue between Parasara with his disciple Maitreya. ...

References

1. ^ Churning the Ocean of Milk by Michael Buckley.
2. ^ Churning of the Ocean of Milk Travel Guide, Angkor Wat.