ಪದ್ಮಿನಿ ಏಕಾದಶಿ | Padmini Ekadashi

Padmini Ekadashi is the eleventh tithi of the bright fortnight of an adhika masa. It is not an annual observance, and that is the first thing to understand about it.

Why it is not annual

Twelve lunar months come to about eleven days less than a solar year, and the calendar makes the difference up by inserting a thirteenth month. A lunar month during which the sun does not change zodiac sign has no name of its own, so it borrows the name of the month that follows and is marked adhika, additional. This happens roughly every thirty-two and a half months, which is seven times in nineteen years. The mechanism is set out in the post on adhika masa.

An adhika masa brings two extra fortnights and therefore two extra ekadashis, which cannot take the names the twelve ordinary months have already used. The bright fortnight gives Padmini, also called Kamala; the dark one gives Parama. A year with an intercalary month has twenty-six ekadashis rather than twenty-four. In the years between, these two simply do not occur, and a reader may wait two or three years for the next. The panel above this text gives the date when there is one to give.

Intercalary months cluster in the middle of the year, because that is when the sun is moving at its slowest, so in practice Padmini usually falls in the monsoon months rather than the winter ones.

The month it belongs to

The adhika masa is set aside for weddings, house entry, upanayana and other beginnings, and is called malamasa, the impure month, for that reason. It is also called Purushottama masa and is given to Vishnu, and the vratas kept in it are among the few things positively recommended during it. That combination, a month in which little else may be done and in which observance is praised, is why these two ekadashis carry unusually large phala in the texts.

The mahatmya

The Padma Purana tells of Padmini, wife of king Kritavirya, who had no son. Anasuya, daughter of Kardama, taught her this vrata of the intercalary month, with the night kept awake, and the phala said to have followed was the birth of Kartaviryarjuna. The claim usually quoted is that the day is worth many ordinary ekadashis. The jagarana is prescribed more firmly here than for most.

The rules of the fast itself do not change, and are in the general post on ekadashi.