Hindu Medicine c7.123

c7.123

Dhanvantari belongs to the series of “fourteen jewels” (ratna), i. e. precious symbols and figures which, one after the other, make their appearance in the course of an important mythical process. At the beginning of time, when the gods and the titans, in their constant rivalry for supremacy and world domination, reached a temporary truce, they combined their antagonistic energies to churn the Milky Ocean, and extracted from the universal life-fluid its “butter,” the elixir of immortality (amṛta). First there emerged other representations of the divine life-force: the goddess of life, beauty, prosperity and riches, Śrī-Lakṣmī; the rain-bestowing elephant of Indra; the horse of the sun-god; Viṣṇu’s breast-jewel, Kaustubha; the kingly parasol of the water-god Varuṇa; and the divine earrings trickling the water of life. Finally, from the liquid depths of primeval cosmic life-substance, Dhanvantari arose, carrying the elixir of immortality in a milk-white bowl.