Amrita (amṛta)

Amrita is the nectar of immortality, raised from the ocean when gods and asuras churned it using Mount Mandara as a stick and the serpent Vasuki as a rope. The Mahabharata tells the churning early, in the Adi Parva, as the ancestor of all its later contests over inheritance, and follows it with Garuda's raid on the nectar to buy his mother out of slavery. A drop of it spilled on grass is why snakes have forked tongues, and Rahu's beheaded attempt to drink it is why he swallows the sun and moon.