Prabodhini Ekadashi is the great Ekadashi of the autumn and one of the best known of the year. On this day, the tradition says, Vishnu wakes from the four-month sleep that began on Devshayani Ekadashi. The period of Chaturmas ends, and the season of weddings and other ceremonies opens again. It is called Dev Uthani, the waking of the gods, in the north, and Kartiki Ekadashi in Maharashtra and the south.
Prabodhini Ekadashi falls in the Shukla paksha, the waxing fortnight, of Kartika. Because the bright half of a month is named alike in the amanta and purnimanta systems, north and south agree on the month of Prabodhini Ekadashi.
The katha
The katha of Prabodhini Ekadashi is attributed by the tradition to the Padma Purana and the Bhavishyottara Purana; regional and printed tellings agree on the shape of the story and differ in its details. The day carries more than one story. The best known is the story of Tulsi and the stone, which is why Tulsi Vivah, the marriage of the tulsi plant, is held on or just after it.
Jalandhara, a powerful demon born of the ocean, grew so strong that the gods could not defeat him. His strength rested partly on the devotion of his wife Vrinda, whose faithfulness protected him. When Shiva fought him, the gods saw that he could not be beaten while Vrinda’s vow was unbroken.
In the telling, Vishnu took on the form of Jalandhara and came to Vrinda, who, deceived, broke her vow, and in that moment Jalandhara was killed. Vrinda, discovering the trick, was heartbroken and angry and cursed Vishnu to turn to stone. Vishnu took the form of the shaligram, the black stone worshipped in his name. Vrinda then gave up her life, and from the place of her pyre, the tulsi plant grew.
Vishnu, moved, promised that he would always be worshipped together with tulsi, and that every year he would be wed to her. For this reason the shaligram and the tulsi plant are married in a small ceremony in many homes around this Ekadashi. The tradition does not make Vrinda a figure of blame: she is honoured as the plant that is dearest to Vishnu.
How the fast is kept
The fast is kept in the usual way, and in the evening many families make a small decorated square on the floor with rice flour or with sugar-cane stalks, place the footprints of Vishnu on it with a lamp, and sing a wake-up song to the god, ringing a bell and beating a plate.
The tulsi plant is dressed like a bride, with a red cloth and a bindi, and married to a shaligram or an image of Vishnu or Krishna, with a ceremony of sugar cane, sweets and fireworks in some places. Weddings and other ceremonies that were paused during Chaturmas begin to be fixed from this day. In Pandharpur, a second great pilgrimage, the Kartiki Wari, gathers at the Vitthal temple.
The dates for Prabodhini Ekadashi below come from the Smarta rule, the sunrise test. Your sampradaya may ask for a different day, since Vaishnava calendars decline an Ekadashi that is mixed with Dashami before dawn, and in that case follow them. The fast of Prabodhini Ekadashi is opened on the following morning, in the parana window given in the Timing column, which lies after sunrise and inside Dwadashi and skips Hari Vasara. Fasting on Prabodhini Ekadashi is a personal discipline, not a test. If you are pregnant, nursing, elderly, diabetic or on regular medicine, ask your doctor what is safe, and know that a light fast of fruit and milk, or a day simply kept in prayer, is a full observance.
Where it sits in the year
In the round of the year, Rama Ekadashi comes before Prabodhini Ekadashi and Utpanna Ekadashi after it. The Ekadashi page lists all the named Ekadashis. For Prabodhini Ekadashi the practical steps are in the Ekadashi vrat vidhi, and the meaning of the tithi is on the Ekadashi tithi page.