Vaikunta Ekadashi 2026: Sunday, 20 December 2026

Shubh muhurat windows

Ekadashi is a day of restraint rather than new undertakings, and Vaikunta Ekadashi belongs to darshan and vigil more than to any election. The Abhijit Muhurat above is the day's universally auspicious window if something must be begun; for major undertakings, pick a date from the muhurat lists instead.

The Abhijit Muhurat is the midday window most digests treat as universally auspicious — Wednesdays excepted (what it is and why). Windows are computed for Delhi; your city's exact span shifts with local sunrise — check the city panchang or the Bela app.

What does Vaikunta Ekadashi celebrate?

Vaikunta Ekadashi is the most celebrated Ekadashi of the year: the Margashirsha Shukla Ekadashi on which the Vaikunta Dwaram — the door of Vishnu's heaven — stands open. Devotees fast and keep vigil, and at the great Vishnu temples of the south they pass through a northern gate opened only on this day, a passage through Vaikunta's own doorway.

The story and significance of Vaikunta Ekadashi

The observance rests on the Padma Purana's account of Vishnu slaying the demon Mura through a shakti born of his own being — Ekadashi herself. Pleased, Vishnu granted that those who honour this day reach Vaikunta: hence the door, and the name. The fast kept on it is held equal to the merit of all twenty-four Ekadashis of the year.

In the Telugu country the day is also Mukkoti Ekadashi — 'three crores' — for the hosts of devas said to descend with Vishnu to witness the door open. Because the southern temples anchor the day to the solar month of Dhanus (Margazhi in Tamil), it always falls in the December–January weeks, whatever the lunar calendar is doing around it.

It is the same eleventh day observed in the north as Mokshada Ekadashi and commemorated as Gita Jayanti — one tithi carrying three observances, which in some years share a single civil date and in others sit a day apart by convention.

How the Vaikunta Ekadashi date is fixed

Vaikunta Ekadashi is the bright-half Ekadashi of Margashirsha — in Bela's engine, the Ekadashi tithi prevailing at sunset in that month. The southern temples state the same rule through the solar calendar: the Shukla Ekadashi that falls while the sun is in Dhanus (the Tamil month of Margazhi), which is why the day lands in late December or early January each year. Because the sunset rule can read the tithi a day later than the sunrise-based udaya convention, Vaikunta Ekadashi sometimes sits one day after the northern Mokshada Ekadashi and Gita Jayanti dates — and sometimes all three share a single day, as they do in 2027.

How Vaikunta Ekadashi is celebrated

Srirangam's Ranganathaswamy temple, the largest living Vishnu temple, makes the day the crown of a twenty-one-day festival — ten days of Pagal Pathu, ten of Ra Pathu, and at their hinge the opening of the Paramapada Vasal, the gate of the highest abode, through which the processional deity passes before dawn with the crowds behind him. At Tirumala, pilgrims in their lakhs walk the Vaikunta Dwaram circuit around Venkateswara's sanctum. Tamil temples everywhere open their own Swarga Vasal — the heaven door — for the day; in Kerala the season's great observance is Guruvayur Ekadashi at the Guruvayur Krishna temple. The day is temple-going at its most vivid: queues from the small hours, the door as the darshan itself.

Vaikunta Ekadashi dates by year