ಕಾಮಿಕಾ ಏಕಾದಶಿ | Kamika Ekadashi

Kamika Ekadashi is the eleventh tithi of the dark fortnight of Ashadha in the amanta reckoning, and of Shravana in the purnimanta almanacs. It is the first ekadashi after Devshayani, and so the first inside chaturmasya.

The mahatmya

The chapter usually cited is from the Brahma Purana, told by Brahma to Narada, and it is repeated in the Padma Purana. What it does, unlike most of the ekadashi chapters, is compare rather than narrate. Bathing in all the tirthas, the dana of a cow, the gift of gold: the vrata is said to yield what these yield. Only at the end is a short account given of a violent man freed of the consequence of a killing.

The part of the chapter that has stayed in practice is what it says about tulasi. A tulasi leaf offered to Vishnu on this day is praised above gold, above pearls, above the more costly offerings, and the lighting of a lamp before him through the night is named with it. The phala said to follow is release from accumulated fault and from the fear of Yama.

In practice

The tulasi offering and the night lamp are the only things that separate Kamika from an ordinary ekadashi, and even they are not peculiar to it: tulasi is offered to Vishnu on every ekadashi, and here the texts simply say more about it. A household that keeps this one more carefully usually does so because it is the first of chaturmasya rather than for anything the day itself carries.

It falls in the rains, when Karnataka is at its wettest. There is no festival attached to it anywhere in the south, no procession, no food of its own. The fast, the reckoning of the tithi and the parana are the general rules on the Ekadashi page.