A practical guide

Ekadashi fasting rules

What to eat, what to avoid, and when to break the fast.

Ekadashi (sometimes written Ekadasi; Sanskrit ekādaśī) is the eleventh lunar day of each fortnight — twice a month, twenty-four times a year (twenty-six in adhika years). The observance is the same across traditions in its core: a one-day fast addressed to Lord Viṣṇu, broken on Dvādaśī during a specific window called pāraṇa. What varies is intensity and detail.

The three intensities

Tradition recognises three levels of fast, all valid. Pick the one your health and circumstances allow — beginners are explicitly told in the Purāṇic literature to start easy and tighten over time.

Nirjala (without water). The strictest form — no food, no water, from sunrise on Ekadasi to sunrise on Dvādaśī. Nirjala Ekadasi (the shukla Ekadasi of Jyeṣṭha, falling in early summer) is traditionally observed nirjala by many otherwise-moderate practitioners; for the rest of the year, water-free fasts are kept by sannyāsīs and the very disciplined.
Phalāhāra (fruits and water). The most common observance. Water, fresh fruit, milk, yogurt, nuts, and root vegetables (potato, sweet potato, raw banana) are permitted. No grains, no pulses. Suitable for working adults and most healthy people.
Naktavrata (one sattvic meal). A single meal taken after sunset, made without grains or pulses — typically a fruit-and-dairy preparation, or a buckwheat (kuṭṭū) or amaranth (rājgirā) dish, with rock salt (sendhā namak) instead of regular salt. This is the gentlest valid observance.

What to avoid

The forbidden list is unusually concrete and consistent across sources:

Grains — wheat, rice, millet, corn, oats, barley. The Purāṇic injunction is specific to grains: the Padma Purāṇa frames it as the consciousness of all sins (pāpa-puruṣa) taking refuge in food grains on Ekadasi day. Eating grains is said to nullify the fast.
Pulses and legumes — dal of every variety, chickpeas, kidney beans, peas, sprouts. Some traditions distinguish these from grains for other purposes, but for Ekadasi the prohibition is the same.
Onion and garlic — universal across all sattvic fasts, not specific to Ekadasi but applied here too.
Regular table salt — replace with sendhā namak (rock salt / Himalayan pink salt) if seasoning is needed for a naktavrata meal.
Honey on shukla Ekadasi, oil on kṛṣṇa Ekadasi — specific traditional refinements observed by stricter practitioners.
Daytime sleep, gambling, gossip, and intoxicants — the day is considered a quiet, inward one, and the merit of the fast is said to leak through these activities.

What to do

The day is not just about restriction — the fast is the container, and the contents are the remembrance:

Chant Viṣṇu's names. The Viṣṇu-sahasranāma is the classical recommendation; for many, even a simple Hare Kṛṣṇa or Om Namo Nārāyaṇāya mālā suffices.
Read or hear the story. Each of the twenty-four Ekadasis has its own narrative in the Padma or Skanda Purāṇa. Reading or hearing the relevant story is itself considered part of the observance — see the full set of stories.
Stay awake the night of Dvādaśī, if you can — the tradition calls this jāgaraṇa. Many keep at least the early evening in meditation or kīrtana.

Pāraṇa — breaking the fast

The fast is broken on Dvādaśī (the twelfth tithi), not at sunrise itself. The precise window is called pāraṇa, and it must satisfy two conditions:

It must be after sunrise on Dvādaśī.
It must be after the Hari Vāsara — the first quarter of Dvādaśī, considered the sacred extension of the Ekadasi vow.

The window closes either at the end of Dvādaśī tithi or at midday, whichever comes first. Breaking the fast before the window opens is considered a fault; breaking it after the window closes is also a fault. The exact pāraṇa start and end time for each Ekadasi are computed and shown on the home page and every story page on this site, derived from local sunrise at your location — there is no single "correct" pāraṇa time, only the one specific to your sunrise.

The first food taken at pāraṇa is traditionally something simple — a few tulsi leaves with water, or a small bite of grain (tradition says to "touch the grain" to formally end the vow). A heavy meal is then eaten after that.

Exceptions and accommodations

The scriptural texts are explicit that those who genuinely cannot fast — children under eight, the elderly, the sick, pregnant and nursing women, those on essential medication — are exempt. The merit is not in the suffering; it is in the orientation. Such people are encouraged to do naktavrata, or to fast only mentally (avoid grains and pulses, eat one sattvic meal at a regular time), or simply to read the story and remember the day.

The eleventh lunar day arrives twenty-four times a year. Even keeping a few of them, with full attention, is considered substantially more meritorious than mechanically keeping all twenty-four. Start at the level you can sustain.