Pausha Putrada Ekadashi
Lord Vishnu
When it falls
The date shifts because it tracks the moon, not the Gregorian calendar.
Calculated for India (IST) using precise Panchang astronomy. Dates can shift by a day at locations far to the east or west.
What Pausha Putrada Ekadashi marks
Like every Ekadashi, Pausha Putrada Ekadashi is a day set aside for fasting and the worship of Vishnu, observed on the eleventh lunar day (tithi) of a fortnight. There are two Ekadashis each lunar month, one in the waxing fortnight and one in the waning, and this one falls in the bright fortnight (Shukla Paksha) of Pausha, the lunar month that usually falls in December or January.
The name Putrada means "giver of sons" or, more broadly, a granter of children, and that is the particular intention attached to this Ekadashi. By tradition, families keep the fast and pray to Vishnu for the birth, health, and long life of their children. The same name and intention recur on Shravana Putrada Ekadashi in the rainy-season month of Shravana, so the calendar marks two Putrada Ekadashis a year.
The day's significance is the standard Ekadashi merit framed around this theme: devotion to Vishnu, restraint of the senses through fasting, and the hope for the continuity and welfare of one's lineage. The observance is voluntary and devotional rather than obligatory, and the degree of fasting kept varies from household to household.
Rituals & observance
Pausha Putrada Ekadashi is kept much like other Ekadashis: a fast through the day, worship of Vishnu, and breaking the fast the next morning. Common observances include:
- Begin the fast on the morning of Monday, 18 January 2027 and keep it through the day, eating only after the fast is broken the following morning.
- Avoid grains, rice, and lentils, which are traditionally set aside on every Ekadashi. Those keeping a partial fast often take fruit, milk, or specific permitted foods; some keep a full fast without food or water.
- Worship Vishnu at home or in a temple with a lamp, flowers, tulsi (holy basil) leaves, and the recitation or reading of Vishnu's names and prayers.
- Spend the day in devotional activity, charity, and restraint of the senses rather than ordinary indulgence.
- Break the fast (parana) on the next morning, the dwadashi tithi, within the prescribed window after sunrise. Eating before that window or after it has passed is to be avoided.
- Where a household keeps this Ekadashi specifically for the welfare of children, the prayers and any offerings are directed to that intention.
How this date is determined
Observed on the Ekadashi tithi of Pausha (Shukla paksha), reckoned by sunrise (udaya tithi).
Dates are computed to astronomical precision (NASA/JPL ephemeris), in line with traditional panchang.
