I am a great fan of Indian mythology. Its fun surfing cross-linked wiki pages. Mind is a gigantic web of cross-linked memories too. A school memory took me to the churning of the great ocean.
We had a free period called zero period. Our class teacher was the school's co-ordinator for ESPN school quiz, and she used to pop quizes in the free period. Once the topic was mythology, which was (and still is) my forte. The question asked was, which God's abode is at Vaikunth. Bang comes my reply- Vithoba. Now this teacher used to ask questions out of a book and treated the answer printed at the back of the book as the sole authority. In this case the answer printed was Balaji, and my answer dint fetch us any points even though I claimed that Vithoba and Balaji both are in fact manifestations of Vishnu.
So this memory which popped out of nowhere took me to "vaikunth" search, which led to the great serpent "shesh naag" and then to another serpent "vaasuki" who had a role to play in the mythological churning of the great ocean.
Being a fan of Dan Brown and Christian allegories, I wonder if this story is to be taken literally.
For one, moon was created at the same time as the earth. Indian lunar calender predates these stories and Indian civilization was very advanced in astronomy. So when the story says that moon was born out of the ocean, I really take it with a pinch of salt. This leads me to very strongly believe that the hidden meaning behind this story is something that runs far deeper than the celestial objects that emerged out of the ocean.
So, the churning of the ocean yielded several precious things..petroleum? minerals? possible..
There was a potent poison that came out of the ocean too..In Ramayana, ravan's brother is performing nuclear experiments under the ocean. Is something on similar lines the potent lifekiller hinted in the story?
The churning was primarily done to obtain the elixir of life. Practically, I cannot think of anything else that restores life, other than pure potable water. So wait a minute, is the story suggesting a way we can get potable water out of saline water? Yeah yeah, I know about Reverse Osmosis, but no one denies the role of centrifugation in separating things.
Food for thought..and motivation for further surfing..
We had a free period called zero period. Our class teacher was the school's co-ordinator for ESPN school quiz, and she used to pop quizes in the free period. Once the topic was mythology, which was (and still is) my forte. The question asked was, which God's abode is at Vaikunth. Bang comes my reply- Vithoba. Now this teacher used to ask questions out of a book and treated the answer printed at the back of the book as the sole authority. In this case the answer printed was Balaji, and my answer dint fetch us any points even though I claimed that Vithoba and Balaji both are in fact manifestations of Vishnu.
So this memory which popped out of nowhere took me to "vaikunth" search, which led to the great serpent "shesh naag" and then to another serpent "vaasuki" who had a role to play in the mythological churning of the great ocean.
Being a fan of Dan Brown and Christian allegories, I wonder if this story is to be taken literally.
For one, moon was created at the same time as the earth. Indian lunar calender predates these stories and Indian civilization was very advanced in astronomy. So when the story says that moon was born out of the ocean, I really take it with a pinch of salt. This leads me to very strongly believe that the hidden meaning behind this story is something that runs far deeper than the celestial objects that emerged out of the ocean.
So, the churning of the ocean yielded several precious things..petroleum? minerals? possible..
There was a potent poison that came out of the ocean too..In Ramayana, ravan's brother is performing nuclear experiments under the ocean. Is something on similar lines the potent lifekiller hinted in the story?
The churning was primarily done to obtain the elixir of life. Practically, I cannot think of anything else that restores life, other than pure potable water. So wait a minute, is the story suggesting a way we can get potable water out of saline water? Yeah yeah, I know about Reverse Osmosis, but no one denies the role of centrifugation in separating things.
Food for thought..and motivation for further surfing..
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