The Garland Indra Did Not Get Down For

Viṣṇu Purāṇa — Book 1, chapter 9

Tradition note. The churning of the ocean is told in several books and they do not agree on what came out of it or in what order. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa is the one that explains why it had to happen at all — the garland, the elephant, the curse — and that is the half most people have never heard.

Before you begin. Nothing frightening. A poison comes out of the ocean and is dealt with in one line; if your child wants that story it is a different night.

Ages 7+3 min aloudwhat you stop noticingwhat you were handed without asking

Durvāsa was walking along a road with a garland he had been given — flowers that did not wilt, the real thing, worth more than it looked.

Indra came the other way on Airāvata, his white elephant, at the head of everything.

And Durvāsa gave him the garland. Which, if you know anything about Durvāsa, is the surprising part of this story. He was not a man who gave people things.

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Indra took it without getting down.

He was not being cruel. He was being king. He had been given a great many garlands. He reached out, took it, and — not knowing what else to do with it while riding — put it on the elephant's head.

The elephant did not care for the smell. He shook it off, and it landed in the road, and he trod on it.

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Durvāsa stood in the road and watched it happen.

What he said was not really about a flower. He said: that was where good fortune was sitting, and you did not get down. And he cursed the three worlds to do without her.

Lakṣmī left. Not dramatically. Things simply stopped coming right — crops thinned, milk soured, people began to hold on to things, and nobody could say exactly when it had started.

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The gods, weaker every year, lost their war. Viṣṇu told them what it would take to get her back, and they did not like it: churn the sea, and you cannot do it alone. You will have to ask the asuras to pull the other end.

So a mountain went in as the stick and Vāsuki agreed to be the rope, and gods and asuras stood at opposite ends of a snake and pulled, for a very long time, together.

A mountain, a snake, and two armies who could not stand each other, pulling for years — to undo one second of not paying attention.

Now turn to your child

Indra did not lose everything by doing something wicked. He lost it by not paying attention for one second. What is something good in your life that you might have stopped noticing?

And if they shrug, you can leave it at this: Good things leave quietly, and usually while nobody is looking at them.

Durvāsadoor-VAA-suhA sage with a famous temper. Almost every story he is in turns on someone not paying attention to him for one second.

IndraIN-druhKing of the gods; he sends the rain, and expects to be thanked for it.

Airāvataeye-RAA-vuh-tuhIndra's white elephant, who came out of the churned ocean himself. He is the one who throws the garland down, and he is not sorry.

LakṣmīLUCK-shmeeGood fortune itself, in person. She is not owned by anyone, which is the part people forget until she leaves.

ViṣṇuVISH-nooThe one who keeps things going. Kṛṣṇa and Rāma are both him, walking about in a body.

VāsukiVAA-soo-keeThe great snake who agreed to be used as the rope for churning the ocean. Nobody in the story asks him twice how it went.

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