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 according to
the
Mahabharata,
a 2,000-year-old Sanskritepic, and other sacred Hindu texts, the Sun and Moonwere, in another age, churned like butter out of the primor-dial ocean by the “gods” and “demons.” Ordinarily thesesupernatural rivals battled for ritual supremacy and celestial sovereignty, but they pooled theirefforts to stir up the elixir of immortality fromthe ocean’s milky waters.Before the gods and demons turned theocean into buttermilk, the demons — older andstronger than the gods — had the upper handin the ongoing conflict. Associated with dark-ness, the demons in Hindu tradition inhabitedthe infernal realm. The gods, on the other hand, are alliedwith light. But each is one side of the coin of complemen-tary opposition, a tension believed to activate the forcesthat make the world what it is.Weakened and discouraged from the battle with thedemons, the gods consulted Vishnu the Preserver, one ofthe three supreme gods of Hinduism and the source of cos-mic order. Vishnu prescribed a dose of
amrita,
the magicalbeverage of immortality, to restore each god’s lost vigor andexplained the need to cooperate with the demons to obtainthe elixir. Nothing less than a mountain could butter upthe ocean, and the gods would need the demons’ help tomove Mount Mandara and twist it like a churn. Vasuki, thecolossal Serpent King, wrapped his coils around Mandaraand joined the dairy industry as the churn cord. Then, withthe gods gripping the tail of the great snake and the demonsalternately pulling on his neck, the mountain swiveled. This vigorous motion destabilized Mount Mandara, and it startedto slip and sink. To avert a downturn in the churning busi-ness, Vishnu mutated into a tortoise, submerged himselfbetween the mountain’s base and the ocean floor, and stead-iedthe churn on his durable shell.Gradually the ocean’s waters turned to milk, and mixedwith the saps and juices flowing from the trees and herbson Mandara’s slopes, the milk began to yield butter.Buttermaking is an ancient technology. A milking-scenerelief from the ancient city of Urkesh in Mesopotamia doc-uments the process about 5,000 years ago. Extraction ofthe tiny drops of butterfat in milk begins with letting themilk stand to allow the cream to separate. Lighter than themilk, the cream containing the fat particles rises and isskimmed off the top. Transferred to the churn, the cream is
46
December 2005
Sky & Telescope
Buttermilk Sky 
Cosmicbeginningscan be assmooth asbutter.
rambling through the skiesby e. c. krupp
BUTTER MAKING
In the ancient Hindu myth of the Churning of the MilkyOcean, essential components of the world emerge from the archaicwaters. Inaugurated by the partnership of gods on the left and demons onthe right, the oceanic reservoir turns into tangible treasures such as theMoon, the goddess of prosperity, and the intoxicating goddess of wine.
The Calendar of Good and Evil
Vasuki’s neck fans into five serpent heads gripped by Bali, the king of thedemons, at the southern end of the wall illustrating the Churning of theMilky Ocean at Angkor Wat. Eleanor Mannikka interprets the entire 45 me-ters (150 feet) of this monumental relief as a calendrical stage in
 Angkor Wat: Time, Space, and Kingship
(1996). Brahmanic astronomy, a philoso-phy of Hinduism, affiliated the demons with the south and the gods withthe north. Equating all the demons with the days when the Sun is south of the celestial equator and all thegods with the days it is to thenorth, she counts all the figurestwice for a total of 182 demonsand 176 gods. Adding and dou-bling the small figure floatingabove Vishnu and Mount Man-dara, she reaches a grand totalof 360. To collect another fiveor six days, she assigns Vishnuand Mount Mandara three daysfor each equinox. According toMannikka, the equinox in tradi-tional Cambodia lasted three or four days. If these relationships are shownto be valid, the churning of Creation mimics the annual cycle of the Sun,which seasonally establishes the pattern of cosmic order.
    D    E    T    U    I    N     D    E    R     G    O    D    E    N ,
   A .    G .   V   A   N   H   A   M   E   L ,   E   D .   A   R   T   W    O   R   K  :   A   N   T    O   N   P   I   E    C   K    (   U   T   R   E    C   H   T ,    C .   1   9   4   0    )   B   A   R   B   A   R   A    S   A   N   B    O   R   N
©2005 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
 
agitated, usually with the twist ofa rod. The turbulence inducescollisions of fat globules, whichstick to each other, and buttergranules grow. When most of thebutter has solidified, the remain-ing fluid — the buttermilk — ispoured off. The butter is thenmolded, packaged, and distrib-uted to consumers.Encouraged by Vishnu, thegods and demons churnedthrough every season, and finally wonders began to gel.First the Moon rose from thewaves, and the Sun soon fol-lowed. More treasures appeareduntil, eventually, a deadlypoisonalso churned up. It would haveenveloped the world and exter-minated life had the god Shivanot drunk it and held it in his throat. As more remarkableitems were stirred up, the gods moved onto the path of theSun, the road to immortality, to wait for the elixir.Solidified from the milky fluid, Dhanvantari, the physicianof the gods, at last brought the amrita to the table, and thedemons went wild. Delirious with the promise of immortal-ity, they rushed the doctor and grabbed the fluid, each de-manding his share. From the beginning, however, Vishnuhad planned to churn the tables on the demons and dis-pense immortality only to the gods. Disguising himselfwith a little cheesecake, Vishnu took the shape of an attrac-tive woman who milked her charms, causing the demons tolose their infatuation with immortality. Distracted by thiscoquette’s baubles, bangles, and beads, they asked her tohelp them decide how to serve the elixir. She teased themwith playful humor, and they put the amrita in her hands.Both gods and demons, she reasoned, had worked equally to churn out the tonic, and so she seated them in separaterows and served the gods first. When she reached the endof their line, she disappeared. The furious demons criedfoul and attacked the gods. The elixir, however, had ener-gized the gods, and they quickly showed the demons thatthere was no point in crying over spilled milk.The Sun and the Moon, however, noticed that the demonRahu had masqueraded as a god. Flanked by the Sun andMoon, he sat in their line and managed to consume someelixir. As soon as Rahu tasted the potion, his deception wasexposed and Vishnu decapitated him. Although he didn’thave time to swallow it, the mouthful of the beverage madehis head immortal. It rose into the sky with the Sun andMoon, but his mortal body fell dead on the ground. Stillenraged, the head of Rahu continues to pursue the Sun andMoon through the sky, and eclipses are said to occur whenhe catches them in his teeth. In a partial eclipse, ritual noisefrom people below scares Rahu away, and his bite backsoff. In a total eclipse, he devours the Sun or the Moon, butinevitably it drops from his severed throat unscathed.Buttermilk also sometimes shows up in the sky. Thethick and rippling milky puffs of midlevel, altocumulusclouds that often herald the approach of wetter weather aresometimes known as a buttermilk sky. Their distinctive cur-dled texture is usually produced by agitated convectionwhen a cold front lifts a large mass of moist air. The cloudscondense, like butter, out of the air and are sheared by wind.In 1946, Hoagy Carmichael and Jack Brooks wrote a songabout buttermilk clouds for the Western film
Canyon Passage.
In “Ole Buttermilk Sky” those churned-up clouds are toldto hang the Moon up in the sky and let it stir up a littleromance. The Moon ought to comply. One good churn de-serves another.
†
E. C. Krupp
is churning to be free at Griffith Observatory inLos Angeles.
Sky & Telescope
December 2005
47
VISHNU
Thewall of the second gallery of AngkorWat, in Cambodia, illustrates the myth of the Churn-ing of the Milky Ocean. This detail reveals the godVishnu occupying a cylindrical Mount Mandara.Weakly supported arguments assert that this mythis linked to an archaic knowledge of precession. Infact, the story is about the divine establishment of cosmic order and the power of royal sovereignty.
CHARMED
To prevent the demons from consumingthe divine nectar of immortality, the god Vishnucommanded their attention in the guise of an en-chanting woman. Convinced of her integrity, theyturned the elixir over to her to distribute it.
   E .    C .   K   R   U   P   P
    T    H    E    C    H    U    R    N    I    N    G     O    F    T    H    E    O    C    E    A    N ,
   A   N   A   N   T   P   A   I ,   E   D .    (   I   N   D   I   A   N   B    O    O   K   H    O   U    S   E   L   I   M   I   T   E   D ,   1   9    8   2    )
©2005 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
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