Vaikunta Ekadasi Festival The Shukla Ekadasi of Margazhi, the greatest Ekadasi of the Vaishnava year.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Vaikunta Ekadasi
- தமிழ்
- வைகுண்ட ஏகாதசி
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: a tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
What the day is
The Shukla Ekadasi of Margazhi, the greatest Ekadasi of the Vaishnava year. The Paramapada Vasal, the gate of Vaikuntha, is opened before dawn at Srirangam and the other Vishnu temples, and the deity passes through it while the Tiruvaimozhi is sung; the crowd follows, since passing the gate that morning is held to open the way to Vaikuntha.
- Deity
- Vishnu, Ranganatha
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
The Ekadasi tithi at sunrise, read as the Vishnu temples read it: the second day when the tithi holds two sunrises, the day after when the Dasami was still running at arunodaya, and the Dwadasi day when the tithi holds no sunrise at all, as in December 2025, when it ran from 07:52 on the 30th to 05:01 on the 31st and Srirangam kept the 31st. The gate is opened in the last watch of the night, between about 3 and 5 in the morning; the fast runs to the parana on the Dwadasi.
The fast
A full Ekadasi fast: no rice or grain, and in the strict form no food or water at all through the night, with the fast broken after sunrise on the Dwadasi within the parana window.
Where the regions differ
Tamil Nadu and Kerala keep it at Srirangam, Tirupati and Guruvayur; Andhra and Karnataka call the same day Vaikuntha Ekadasi or Mukkoti Ekadasi, and the north knows it as Putrada Ekadashi in Pausha.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.