The Devta gods had offended a great sage. As punishment, the sage made the Devtas weak and powerless. In the on going battle between the gods and the demons, this would have proved to be a great disadvantage to the Devtas. The thought about how to solve the problem for a long time, but did not know how to remove their aliment. Finally, they decided to approach Vishnu, the Preserver.

Vishnu advised them to enlist the help of their archenemies, the demons, to uproot Mount Mandara. With this mountain, they would need to use the divine serpent, Vasuki, to hold the mountain up as gods and demons together held the serpent and used the mountain to stir the ocean. From this, would be produced the remedy for the Devtas ailment, in the form of the nectar of immortality. The Devtas originally did not wish to approach the demons for help, but seeing that they had no other choice, they agreed reluctantly.

When the demons heard of the plan, they were elated for they knew from this they would be able to attain the nectar of immortality which would make them very much stronger than they were. They therefore joined with the Devtas to uproot the mountain. Eventually, when the stirring was about to commence, the leader of the Devtas, Indra, insisted on having the head end of the serpent. The demons figured that the Devtas wished to obtain some advantage from having the head end, therefore they denied Indra and took the head end for themselves.

In fact, this was a ploy on the part of the Devtas, as instructed by Vishnu. The head of the serpent produced venom that would weaken the demons when they held it. However, the demons were oblivious to this, and they started stirring the ocean without knowing they were getting weaker.

So the churning went on for one hundred years, and in the process, many things came out of the ocean. One of this was the beautiful goddess, Lakshmi, who emerged from the ocean on a lotus flower. The divine bovine, Surabhi, also was produced from the stirring. Surabhi later had a son, Nandi, whom became the mount of Shiva, the Destroyer. A crescent moon also arose from the waves, and Shiva snatched it up and placed the crescent upon his forehead.

In the middle of the stirring, the venom suddenly ejected venom from all his one hundred heads that was so poisonous that it almost destroyed everything on earth. Shiva, under Vishnu's persuasion, heroically swallowed all the poison which the serpent produced. The poison was harmless to Shiva, for he was the supreme God and the Destroyer. However, the venomous poison left a blue colour on his throat that would not go away.

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