Note 60 — Chapter II
David Shea translation
According to the Máhábharat, when the Súras and Asúras (the gods and Dáityas, or “demons”) had, by the whirling of the ocean, obtained the Amrita, or “the nectar of immortality,” a fierce dispute arose among them about the possession of it; but Vishnu succeeded in obtaining it for the Súras. Ráhu, a demon under the disguise of a Súra, was about to drink it, when, informed of it by the sun and the moon, the god just mentioned, by a blow with his chakra, struck off the demon’s head, which, flying up to heaven, since keeps an inextinguishable hatred against the two luminaries who had betrayed him, and now and then swallows the sun or the moon.—A. T.