ಏಕಾದಶಿ | Ekadashi

Ekadashi is the eleventh tithi of a fortnight. There is one in the bright half of each lunar month and one in the dark half: twenty-four in an ordinary year, twenty-six when there is an intercalary month. It is the most frequently kept fast in the Hindu year, and the most closely regulated.

The twenty-six names

Each ekadashi has its own name, its own story and its own stated fruit. Utpanna and Mokshada in Margashira, Saphala and Putrada in Pushya, Shattila and Jaya in Magha, Vijaya and Amalaki in Phalguna, Papamochani and Kamada in Chaitra, Varuthini and Mohini in Vaishakha, Apara and Nirjala in Jyeshtha, Yogini and Devshayani in Ashadha, Kamika and Putrada in Shravana, Aja and Parsva in Bhadrapada, Indira and Papankusha in Ashwayuja, Rama and Prabodhini in Kartika. An adhika masa brings two more, Padmini and Parama, which occur in no other month. Vaikuntha Ekadashi, the bright ekadashi of the month the sun spends in Dhanus, is the one on which temples open their northern door. Anudina carries a separate post for every one of these, because what is said about one is not true of another.

Which day carries it

The reference moment is sunrise: the day on which the ekadashi tithi is running at sunrise is the day of the fast. That is the simple statement, and for most of the year it is the whole answer.

The complication is called viddha, pierced. An ekadashi is viddha when dashami is still running in the last part of the night and clings to its beginning. The test is arunodaya, roughly the last hour and a half before sunrise: if dashami is current then, that morning is dashami viddha. The same problem arises in reverse when a long ekadashi is current at two successive sunrises and there are two candidate days.

Where these cases arise, the two traditions part. Smartas keep the earlier day, the one on which the tithi is current at sunrise, and accept a little of dashami at its edge. Vaishnavas, including the Madhva households of Karnataka and the coast, will not accept an ekadashi touched by dashami and keep the later day, the pure ekadashi, which in practice often means fasting on what the panchanga calls dvadashi. This is not one of the two being careless. It is a difference of rule, applied consistently, and it is why a Sringeri calendar and an Udupi calendar can print ekadashi against different dates in the same fortnight. Anudina prints the tithi boundaries and the arunodaya.

The fast, and what is eaten

No grain is taken: no rice, no wheat, no pulses. Beyond that the practice varies. The common smarta observance is phalahara, one meal of fruit, milk, tubers and non-grain flours. Many Madhva households keep it without food altogether, and some without water, and in those houses even members who are not fasting will not eat rice that day. The old, the ill, the very young and women who are pregnant are exempt, and the exemption is not grudging. Beyond the food, the day is given to Vishnu: tulsi, the Vishnu Sahasranama, and on some ekadashis a night vigil.

Parana, and the dvadashi problem

The fast is not broken when the fast feels over. It is broken the next morning, in dvadashi, and there are two conditions. It must be after the first quarter of dvadashi, the hari vasara, has passed, and it must be before dvadashi itself ends. When dvadashi is short that window can be a few minutes wide, and it has to be taken. When dvadashi ends before the next sunrise altogether, the rules give special remedies and some households fast on two consecutive days. This is the part of the observance most often got wrong, and an almanac that gives an ekadashi date without a parana time has told only half the story.