Samudra Manthana

Indra, the King of Svarga, was riding on his divine elephant when he came across the sage Durvasa, who offered him a special garland given to him by an apsara.

[2] The deity accepted the garland and placed it on the trunk (sometime the tusks or the head of the elephant in some scriptures) of Airavata (his mount) as a testament to his humility.

This enraged the sage, as the garland was a dwelling of Sri (fortune) and was to be treated as a prasada or a religious offering.

The devas formed an alliance with the asuras to jointly churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality, and to share it among themselves.

While carrying the massive mountain, several devas and asuras fell to their deaths and some perished due to sheer exhaustion.

Despite this, the devas and the asuras pulled back and forth on the snake's body alternately, causing the mountain to rotate, which in turn churned the ocean.

[7] All kinds of herbs were cast into the ocean and fourteen ratnas (gems) were produced from it and were divided between the asuras and the devas.

Due to their luminous nature, the deities of the sun and the moon, Surya and Chandra, noticed this disguise.

[11] Medieval Hindu theology extends this legend to state that while the asuras were carrying the amṛta away from the devas, some drops of the nectar fell at four different places on the Earth: Haridwar, Prayaga (Prayagraj),[12] Trimbak (Nashik), and Ujjain.

[15] This episode has been analyzed comparatively by Georges Dumézil, who dubiously connected it to various historical "Indo-European" facts and even the European medieval legend of the Holy Grail, reconstructing a proto-story (the "ambrosia cycle", or "cycle of the mead") about a theoretical trickster deity who steals the drink of immortality for mankind but fails in freeing humans from death.

Dumézil later abandoned his theory, but the core of the idea was taken up by Jarich Oosten, who posits "similarities" with the Hymiskviða.

Oosten claims the serpent Jörmungandr takes the place of Vasuki, although his role in the story is not at all similar or comparable.