Parama Ekadashi

When it falls

This Ekadashi comes only in a year with an extra (adhika) month; none falls in the years this site shows yet. All Ekadashi dates

The story

Sumedha and Pavitra. The Ekadashi Mahatmya printed at Pune tells of a good brahmin named Sumedha who lived in the city of Kampilya with his faithful wife Pavitra. They were very poor. Even so, Pavitra gave food to every guest, sometimes going hungry herself. Sumedha decided to go to another land to earn money. Pavitra asked him to stay: what is ours will come to us here, she said, and a wife left alone is talked about. He stayed.

One day the sage Kaundinya came to their door. They welcomed him and fed him with care, and Pavitra asked him how their poverty might end. Kaundinya told them of Parama, the Ekadashi of the dark half of the extra month, to be kept with a fast and a night of songs and music. Kubera had kept it, he said, and so had Harishchandra. He also taught them a five-night vow that begins on Parama. Husband and wife kept both together. When they had finished, a prince came from the palace, gave them a new house full of good things and a village for their living, and they lived well from then on.

Jayasharma at Prayag. The Padma Purana (1894), which calls this Ekadashi Kamala, tells of Jayasharma, the youngest son of a brahmin of Avanti, who went wrong and was sent away. He wandered to Prayag, bathed where the rivers meet, and came, hungry, to the ashram of the sage Harimitra, where people had gathered for the extra month. There he heard the story of this Ekadashi and kept it with them. At midnight Lakshmi came to him, sent by Vishnu, and offered a boon. She taught him the rules of the fast, and he went home to his father a prosperous man.

About this telling

In the Padma Purana's printing this Ekadashi is called Kamala, and Lakshmi tells Jayasharma that he kept the Ekadashi of the first fortnight of the extra month. In the purnimanta calendar the dark fortnight comes first, so this is the same day as Parama. The Padma Purana also gives the old rule for an Ekadashi that covers two days: householders keep the first, ascetics the second.

Where the story comes from

• Ekadashi Mahatmya, the Sanskrit stories of the Ekadashis as Krishna tells them to Yudhishthira, printed as a pothi (Pune: Ravji Shridhar Gondhalekar, Jagaddhitechhu Press, first edition, Shaka 1812, that is 1890; imprint, leaf n215). Its colophons assign the stories to the Bhavishyottara, Brahmavaivarta and Skanda Puranas. An anonymous Sanskrit text: public domain. Read on the page images and retold in our own words. The adhika Krishna Ekadashi Parama and the story of Sumedha and Pavitra. (folios 102–106 (leaves n205–n214))
• Padma Purana, Uttara Khanda, chapter 64, in the Anandashrama Sanskrit Series edition (Padmapuranam, part 4, Uttara Khanda, edited by V. N. Mandlik; Poona: Anandashrama Press, 1894; title page, leaf n5). An anonymous Sanskrit text: public domain. Read on the page images and retold in our own words. (chapter 64, pp. 1376–1378 (leaves n158–n160))

Sources

• Ekadashi name and month: the Pujadeep calendar's table of Ekadashi names.
• Ekadashi Mahatmya (Pune: Jagaddhitechhu Press, 1890). (folios 102–106 (leaves n205–n214))
• Padma Purana, Uttara Khanda, Anandashrama edition (Poona, 1894), chapter 64. (pp. 1376–1378 (leaves n158–n160))

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