The Elixir of Life: When Kala Rau Ate the Moon

Learning the (mixed & conflicting) stories of this stone panel, found on a tower in Bali’s Besakih temple complex, I began to hear it as a junior high school vengeance play. A sort of ‘He said, She totally said’ voice. Without pretending to authenticity, I’m going to tell you what I’ve gleaned of this story in the naturally-caffeinated, wandering narrative voice of my junior high school days:
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So this gigantinormous bird—Garuda?—he flies up & gets the elixir of immortality.

It’s called Amrita, right? Yeah, like our friend. She’s named after it...only this is a nectar, not a girl. Nectar means it’s a drink. A thick drink, like a smoothie but not creamy or with boosts, & stuff.
Well, I guess it has one boost: immortality. Yeah, it’s like mead, whatever….Wait, dude, you drank mead before? Whoa.
Anyway, amrita is for the gods. They drink it.
It’s WHY gods are immortal.

I don’t KNOW where Garuda found it! It was just, like: UP THERE. In the heavens. Yes it is, TOO, possible. He did it, didn’t he?
So obviously it is possible.

Okay, fine!
If you fly up high enough into the air--somewhere behind the permanently-exhausted manicurist-of-the-Hindu-gods’ shop--there’s this big heavenly pantry filled with things like elixirs of life & FIRE & demon paste & magic lamps & end of the world juju. Way in the back, there’s this crusty jar of opened-but-not-quite-empty, millennium-old mustard-of-everlasting-good-posture, but none of the gods will admit that it’s theirs. No one will touch it, but no one will throw it away either…because it’s not EMPTY yet. It might come in handy some day. It might help win a battle. You never know.

Satisfied? I don’t want to talk about heavenly pantries anymore. This is not even part of the story! Stop asking me these questions. It is rude to interrupt people. The giant magic bird Garuda, whose egg hatched in a world-consuming ball of fire?, he just GOES UP THERE and GETS it.

The elixir of immortality. Amrita.

Okay, so then he brings it back & Kala Rau, this demon? he sneaks up & steals it! But the demon can’t EVEN keep his mouth shut, so Kala Rau blabs all about his big plan to steal the elixir of immortality to the moon goddess, Ratih, & then Ratih tells Vishnu, & Vishnu gets pissed.

Vishnu’s like, 'Dude! A DEMON is stealing the elixir of immortality!? That is NOT okay.' Very uncool. So he chases down Kala Rau. Kala Kau runs. He runs fast. Because when the blue-skinned, 4-armed, preserver of the world with a thousand names decides to come get you: you are totally screwed.

I don’t KNOW! Shut UP! Yeah, okay, FINE: in the heavenly pantry? Behind the mustard? Someone has wedged this dog-eared copy (with “Property of Zeus” written in purple crayon inside the cover) titled “101 Animal Forms Mortal Women Find Irresistible” & also a nectar-stained: “Ares is from Mars & Venus is from Venus” with sections of it double underlined & starred.

ANYWAY.

The god Vishnu catches Kala Rau the demon just as he’s about to drink amrita, the nectar. A DEMON drinking the GODS’ elixir of immortality! Majorly bad juju. Vishnu’s like, ‘Back away from the goblet, 'mon.’ (I’m just assuming it’s a goblet. It could have been a Dixie cup or a dipper, like the Big Dipper? But it doesn’t matter.) Kala Rau, he’s like, no WAY, because, really, what does he have to lose? And so he starts to drink it anyway. Vishu completely freaks & throws his magic discus at Kala Rau, & it cuts his head off. Completely off. Decapitation. Demon head: on the ground. BUT.

Kala Rau had already started to drink the elixir, right? Just a little bit before the god’s discus comes up & whacks him? It, like, touched his lips & his throat? But he hadn’t SWALLOWED it, technically, yet. So get this: now Kala Rau’s HEAD is immortal, but the rest of him: toast. Vishuized. Dead.

NOW he’s this immortal disembodied demon head.
Wicked, man.

AND: he’s super extra pissed at Ratih, the moon goddess, for blabbing his secret plans to steal the elixir to Vishnu, which is what got him decapitated. So now he goes flying around the sky—this crazy-ass immortal disembodied demon head?—trying to eat the moon in vengeance. Old school, dude. Very, very OLD school.

Sometimes he catches her, too, & the demon head eats the moon: then it’s an eclipse. But then she gets out again & goes, like,
‘You think you’re so bad? Eat me!’ And runs.