Tradition

Churning of the Sea of Milk

កូរសមុទ្រទឹកដោះ

The Churning of the Sea of Milk (កូរសមុទ្រទឹកដោះ,[1] Ko Samutra Teuk Dos[2]) is a Hindu story of gods and demons churning an ocean for the elixir of immortality.[1][3][4] The conservator Maurice Glaize wrote that the scene is known everywhere and often shown in Khmer art.[5] A famous carving of it is at Angkor Wat (អង្គរវត្ត),[6] on the long relief of the east gallery.[5][4]

The scholar Thomas S. Maxwell gives the episode its Sanskrit name, Amrta-manthana, the "Churning for Ambrosia".[3] Sources in English use both "Sea of Milk" and "Ocean of Milk".[5][4][2]

The story

Glaize traced the Angkor Wat relief to the Bhagavata Purana.[5] In the telling given by Sounds of Angkor, gods and demons were all mortal at first.[4] Vishnu suggested that the two sides work together to draw the amrita, the drink of immortality, out of the ocean of milk.[4] They threw magic herbs into the water and set the peak of Mount Mandara on the back of a turtle.[4] The serpent Vasuki was wrapped around the mountain and served as the rope.[5][7] The asuras, or demons, held its head and the devas, or gods, its tail. By pulling in turn, they rotated the mountain.[5][4] Vishnu himself took the form of the tortoise, Kurma, that held up the mountain.[5][8]

Sources differ on how long the work lasted. Glaize gives over a thousand years and Sounds of Angkor a thousand years;[5][4] a telling on the culture site of Apsara Media Services (AMS) gives many thousands of years.[1]

The churning brought up many wonders. The AMS telling lists the apsaras, the horse Uccaihshravas, the three-headed elephant Airavata, the goddess Lakshmi, Varuni, the Parijata tree and Dhanvantari carrying the amrita.[1] Glaize's list names a white elephant, Airavana, the mount of the god Indra, and he calls the apsaras flying nymphs whose dancing animates Indra's sky.[5] The Angkor National Museum describes Lakshmi, who appeared in the churning, as a treasure of Vishnu.[8]

The serpent then spat out a poison, the halahala. At Brahma's demand, Shiva (ព្រះឥសូរ)[1] drank it, and it scarred his throat.[5] The asuras then seized the amrita.[5][1] In Glaize's account Vishnu appeared to them as Maya, the illusion, in bewitching beauty, to win back the cup; in the AMS telling, Narayana takes the form of Mohini, a beautiful woman.[5][1] An essay published by the Digital South Asia Library tells a shorter version in which Vishnu carries the elixir off for safekeeping and Indra is crowned.[7]

Rahu

In the AMS telling, one asura drank the amrita in disguise. The sun and moon told Narayana, whose disc cut the asura at the throat. Both parts stayed immortal and became two planets, Rahu the head and Ketu the body.[1] In an author's note, Glaize tells the legend with Vishnu, whose thrown disc cuts the demon in two; ever since, Rahu tries to swallow the sun and moon in revenge. Glaize wrote that the head of Kala, a monster placed high in the center of Khmer lintels, became a common motif, and his note gives it a second name, the head of Rahu. The note records that in his day it was "still customary to 'shoot the moon' at the time of an eclipse" to frighten the demon away.[5]

At Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat was built under Suryavarman II (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី២),[6] who reigned from 1113 to about 1150.[7] The churning relief fills the southern part of the east gallery of bas-reliefs.[5][4] Glaize gave its length as nearly 50 meters (about 160 feet); a 2023 Cambodianess article gives 60 meters (about 200 feet).[5][9]

The panel is laid out around a central axis and is more stylized than the other Angkor Wat reliefs.[5] Glaize counted 92 asuras on the left, in a kind of helmet, and 88 devas on the right, in diadems with the mukuta. Three larger figures lead each line. At the far right, Glaize placed the monkey Hanuman, who sided with the gods; the Digital South Asia Library essay names this monkey Sugriva, and names Bali, king of the asuras, at the head.[5][7] At the center, Vishnu in his human form presides over the work.[5][7] A frieze of apsaras runs the full length of the panel, and fish and sea creatures writhe close to the pivot. At the base, the serpent Vasuki appears again in the water.[5]

Several readings of the relief have been put forward. The Digital South Asia Library essay reads it as a hidden calendar. In its reading, the gods and asuras in the relief add up to the days from the winter solstice to the summer solstice, and the central pivot stands for the three-day equinox festival that opens the new year. The essay also links the scene to the coronation of Suryavarman II, since in its account Khmer inscriptions and Thai records show the churning performed when kings were crowned.[7] Sounds of Angkor presents the relief as the scene of the apsaras' birth.[4]

The story appears elsewhere in the temple too. Glaize recorded it on pediments of the crossing cloister and on a wall of the southwest corner pavilion.[5] An AMS article describes a lintel on the north side of the central tower, with Vishnu (ព្រះវិស្ណុ) at the center and four figures on each side, among them Brahma and a monkey on the gods' side.[6]

From 1998 the World Monuments Fund studied water damage in the churning gallery at the invitation of the APSARA National Authority. It took down and rebuilt the gallery roof stones and completed that conservation work in December 2011.[10]

Angkor Thom and Preah Khan

At each gate of Angkor Thom, the causeway over the moat is lined with two rows of giant stone figures holding a naga, with gods along one row and demons along the other.[9][11] The 13th-century Chinese visitor Zhou Daguan counted 54 such figures on each side.[5] The rows are often called the giants' tug-of-war.[11]

In a passage Glaize quoted, George Coedès and Paul Mus suggested that the naga rail may stand for a rainbow, which in Indian tradition joins people with the world of the gods. With the gods and demons added, the scene recalls the churning: the moat stands for the ocean and the city wall, above all its gate, for the mountain. They saw the whole as a sort of magical means of securing victory and prosperity for the country.[5] Im Sokrithy of the APSARA National Authority has described the causeways as an image of the churning. He noted that invaders from Champa had occupied the region for some years, and suggested that Jayavarman VII may have ordered the figures to raise his city's image to the level of the immortal.[9]

The same giants hold the naga on the causeways of Preah Khan, another foundation of Jayavarman VII, and at the far-off city of Banteay Chhmar. Glaize took them as the sign of a royal city.[5] The Preah Khan foundation stele uses the story in words. Kambujarajalakshmi was a queen on the maternal side of Jayavarman VII's ancestry. The stele likens her to the goddess Lakshmi and the family she was born into to an ocean. Maxwell's translation adds "[of milk]", and his commentary explains the image as the ocean from which Lakshmi was born when it was churned.[3] Inside the Bayon, a large and partly broken panel on the southern part of the inner gallery's west side shows the churning, with a column set on the tortoise, the sun and moon, and the flask of amrita.[5]

Other temples

Carvings of the story appear across several centuries of Khmer building.

  • A temple at Wat Preah Enkosei in Siem Reap, from the second half of the 10th century, has a churning relief.[12]
  • At Ek Phnom in Battambang, an 11th-century temple, the central door and tower carry scenes of the churning.[13]
  • At the Temple of Preah Vihear (ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ), a pediment of the fourth gopura shows the story.[1] The AMS article notes that the temple's mythological carvings favor scenes tied to prosperity.[1]
  • Banteay Samre, a temple of the Vishnu cult, has the scene on a pediment of its east gopura, presided over by Brahma. No inscription was found there; Glaize placed it close in time to Angkor Wat, perhaps a little later.[5]
  • Beng Mealea includes the churning among its pediments.[5]
  • The present central tower of Bakong carries pediments in the style of Angkor Wat, with the churning on the south side.[5]
  • At Preah Pithu, at the north end of the royal square in Angkor Thom, Glaize recorded churning lintels on two of the temples, one of them highly stylized.[5]
  • Monument 487 is reached by a forest track of 250 meters (about 820 feet) that runs south from the road to the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom, starting 900 meters (about 2,950 feet) east of the royal square. Its inscribed stele dates it to near the end of the 13th century, and Glaize recorded a churning lintel there.[5]
  • At Wat Rattanak Sopoan, a pagoda near the foot of Phnom Yat in Pailin, the wall around the pagoda carries a churning relief similar to the reliefs at Angkor Wat.[2]

Apsaras and dance

In the story, the apsaras are born of the churning.[5] Sounds of Angkor traces this origin to texts from classical India.[4] The Sovanna Phum Art Association describes them as born from the foam thrown up as the ocean was churned for Toek Amridh,[14] the amrita (ទឹកអម្រឹត).[1] It ties the dance Robam Apsara to these beings, and writes that it was danced at palace celebrations and offering ceremonies of the Angkorian era.[14] Sounds of Angkor notes that an Old Khmer inscription (K. 327) gives apsara names to temple maids.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 AMS Khmer Civilization, Mythological carvings at Preah Vihear Temple (updated May 13, 2022; in Khmer)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Tourism Cambodia, Phnom Yat, Attraction in Pailin (undated)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Udaya, Journal of Khmer Studies 8, Thomas S. Maxwell, The Stele Inscription of Preah Khan, Angkor: Text with Translation and Commentary (2007)
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 Patrick Kersalé, Sounds of Angkor, Dance through the iconography of Angkor Wat (updated December 5, 2023)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21 5.22 5.23 5.24 5.25 5.26 5.27 5.28 5.29 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (first published 1944; English translation from the fourth French edition, 2009 version)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 AMS Khmer Civilization, The mystery of the towers of Angkor Wat (updated July 10, 2021; in Khmer)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Digital South Asia Library, University of Chicago, Angkor Wat, 1113-1150: The Role of Astronomy at Angkor Wat (undated)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Angkor National Museum, Angkor National Museum Bulletin, Volume 8 (October 2016)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Cambodianess (ThmeyThmey), Isa Rohany, The Five Gateways of Angkor Thom (November 4, 2023)
  10. ↑ ICC-Angkor, 20 Years of International Cooperation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (January 2014)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Cambodianess, Long Ton, Angkor Thom: the Khmer Empire's Enclosed and Complex 12th Century City (April 2, 2022)
  12. ↑ Cambodianess, Isa Rohany, Meet the 12 Pagodas Along the Siem Reap Stream (October 14, 2023)
  13. ↑ Cambodianess, Nhem Chan, Ek Phnom: Battambang's Must-See 11th Century Temple (August 16, 2022)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Sovanna Phum Art Association, Learn (undated)
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This page was last edited on 12 October 2026, at 08:36.