Dev Uthani Ekadashi
Prabodhini Ekadashi — Vishnu wakes after the four monsoon months, and the wedding season opens.
Where it is kept All India; especially Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the tithi running at sunrise.
Overview
Vishnu is held to sleep from Devshayani Ekadashi in Ashadha and to wake on this one in Kartika — the four months between are Chaturmas, in which weddings, house-warmings, thread ceremonies and new ventures are not undertaken. Today that constraint lifts.
The waking is enacted: the household calls to the deity at dawn, the conch is blown, and in many places a footprint pattern is drawn on the floor with rice flour. From this tithi the muhurta calendar reopens and the wedding season runs to the following Ashadha.
Where it comes from
The chaturmas restriction is set out in the Dharmashastra literature and has a practical foundation as clear as its theological one: the monsoon made travel, procession and large gatherings impractical across the Indian plain, and ascetics were required to stay in one place for the same reason.
The Padma Purana carries the Prabodhini Ekadashi narrative and the vrat. In much of northern India the following day, Dwadashi, is Tulsi Vivah, and in some regions the two are kept together.
Why it matters
This is the day the muhurta calendar reopens, and the practical effect is immediate: the Indian wedding season begins here. The muhurat finder on this site treats Chaturmas as a blocking rule for exactly this reason, and lifts it on this tithi.
It is also the point from which the Kartika bathing and lamp observances run to the full moon four days later.
How to celebrate
- Keep the Ekadashi fast and break it at the Dwadashi paranaThe standard Ekadashi rules apply.
- Blow the conch and wake the deity at dawnThe enactment is the rite; the calling out is not optional in the household form.
- Fix the weddings and the house-warmings you have been holdingThe window opens today.
- Draw the footprints and light the lamps at the tulsiCustomary, and it runs into Tulsi Vivah the next day.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not eat rice or grain on the EkadashiThe standard prohibition for all twenty-four.
- Do not pluck Tulsi leaves on an EkadashiExplicitly forbidden in the Padma Purana; gather them the previous evening.
- Do not begin the wedding season before this tithiChaturmas holds until it, and a muhurta computed inside it is not one.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Padma Purana, Uttara Khanda, for the Prabodhini Ekadashi and the Ekadashi vrat rules.
- Bhavishya Purana and the Dharmashastra chaturmas literature, for the four-month restriction and its lifting.
- Nirnayasindhu, for the muhurta consequences of Devshayani and Prabodhini Ekadashi.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page