Vratams and fasting

Ekadashi: why it is kept, how to keep it, and all 24 names

The origin of the Ekadashi fast, what may and may not be eaten, why the parana window matters more than the fast itself, and every one of the twenty-four Ekadashis of the year with its own name and story.

Ekadashi is the eleventh tithi of each fortnight, and the fast kept on it is the most widely observed recurring discipline in the Hindu calendar. Twice a lunar month, twenty-four times a year — twenty-six in a year carrying an intercalary month. Almost every household that keeps anything keeps this.

Where the fast comes from

The Padma Purana gives the origin story. A demon named Murа, born of the sins of the world, could not be defeated; while Vishnu rested, a feminine power emerged from him and destroyed Mura, and Vishnu named her Ekadashi and granted her the boon that whoever fasted on her day would be freed from accumulated wrong. A related account says the sins of the world took refuge in grain on this tithi, which is why grains and pulses are the specific things set aside.

The practical reading is less dramatic and probably more to the point. A fortnightly fast is a rhythm a household can actually sustain — frequent enough to be a discipline, rare enough not to be a hardship — and it falls at a predictable point in the lunar cycle that requires no calculation to remember.

The three degrees of the fast

What is avoided

• All grains — rice, wheat, ragi, jowar, bajra, semolina, maida.
• All pulses and lentils, including chana and besan.
• Onion and garlic.
• Non-vegetarian food of any kind, and alcohol.
• Ordinary table salt, in strict practice — rock salt (sendha namak) is used instead.

What is permitted

• Fruit of all kinds, and fruit juices.
• Milk, curd, buttermilk and ghee.
• Potato, sweet potato, raw banana, pumpkin and most gourds.
• Sabudana, singhare ka atta (water chestnut flour), rajgira (amaranth), kuttu (buckwheat).
• Nuts, dates, jaggery, coconut, and rock salt.
• Peanuts, in most regional practice.

The parana window, which matters more than the fast

This is the part most often got wrong. The Ekadashi fast is not broken at midnight, and not simply when you wake up. It is broken during dwadashi — the following tithi — after sunrise and before dwadashi ends.

Break it too early, and the fast is held to be incomplete. Break it after dwadashi has already ended, and the merit of the fast is held to be lost entirely. This is why an Ekadashi observance is really a two-day matter, and why the tithi end time printed on a panchangam is not a technical footnote.

Two further refinements appear in stricter practice. Hari Vasara is the first quarter of dwadashi, during which parana is avoided — so the window opens after it. And when dwadashi ends very early in the morning, the parana must be squeezed into a narrow band shortly after sunrise, which is worth knowing the night before rather than discovering at nine.

Why two panchangams sometimes disagree about the day

A tithi can span two sunrises, and when the eleventh does, a further rule decides which day carries the fast. Vaishnava practice generally defers to the second day — the one on which ekadashi is not mixed with dashami at sunrise — while smarta practice often takes the first. Both are internally consistent; neither is a miscalculation.

In years where the two diverge, the second day is sometimes called Vaishnava Ekadashi and listed separately. If your family has always fasted on a particular one of the two, that is the tradition to follow, and a site disagreeing with it is not a reason to change.

The twenty-four Ekadashis

Each has its own name, its own katha, and in many cases its own regional prominence. Listed by amanta month, shukla paksha first.

The four that draw the largest observance

• Vaikuntha Ekadashi (Mokshada, Margashira shukla) — the great one in the south. Temples open their vaikuntha dwaram and the queues at Srirangam and Tirumala run through the night.
• Nirjala Ekadashi (Jyeshtha shukla) — kept without water, and held to carry the merit of all twenty-four if the others could not be kept. Also called Bhimseni, after Bhima, who could not fast and was told this one would suffice.
• Devshayani Ekadashi (Ashadha shukla) — Vishnu is said to begin his four-month rest. Chaturmasya starts here, and weddings are traditionally not held until it ends.
• Prabodhini Ekadashi (Kartika shukla) — Vishnu wakes. Chaturmasya ends, the wedding season reopens, and Tulasi Vivaha follows within days.

How the day is kept

1. Bathe before sunrise and take the sankalpa — a stated intention to keep the fast, naming the Ekadashi.
2. Light a lamp before Vishnu or Krishna and offer tulasi. No offering to Vishnu is considered complete without it.
3. Read that fortnight's Ekadashi katha, or recite the Vishnu Sahasranama.
4. Keep the fast in whichever of the three forms suits you. Grains and pulses are set aside for the whole tithi.
5. Many keep a night vigil (jagarana), reading or singing through it.
6. Give something away — food and grain especially, since grain is what you have set aside.
7. The next morning, after sunrise and within dwadashi, break the fast simply. Feeding someone before eating yourself is traditional.

Every timing referenced in these guides is computed astronomically for the city you select and cross-referenced against the traditional panchangams in common use. How we compute