Mokshada Ekadasi 2105

King Yudhishthira asked Sri Krishna about the Ekadashi of the bright half of Margashirsha, and which deity is worshipped on it. Sri Krishna said that it is called Mokshada, that it removes all sins, and that on it Lord Damodara is worshipped with sprigs of tulasi. Then He told an ancient story, saying that by its merit even forefathers who have fallen low because of their sins reach liberation.

There was once a city called Champaka, adorned with devotees of Vishnu and with brahmanas who had mastered the Vedas and the Upanishads. Its king was Vaikhanasa. He looked after his subjects as if they were his own sons, and they prospered.

One night the king saw a dream. His forefathers had fallen into hell, and they were weeping and calling to him, "You who were born of our bodies, rescue us from this ocean of hell."

In the morning the king, amazed and troubled, told the brahmanas what he had seen. "Because of this," he said, "my great kingdom gives me no pleasure. My horses and elephants, my wife and my sons do not please me. Tell me some vow or penance by which my ancestors can be freed. What use is a son, however rich and strong, while his father lives in a dreadful hell?"

The brahmanas told him that the hermitage of the sage Parvata, who knew the past and the future, was close by. The king went there at once with brahmanas and other kings. He found the sage, like a second Brahma, among sages learned in the Vedas, and bowed full length at his feet. "I have seen my ancestors in hell," he said. "Tell me what merit will free them."

Parvata closed his eyes in meditation for a short while. Then he said that he had understood their past deeds. In a former life the king's father, proud of his kingdom and busy with his royal affairs, had gone away to a village and failed in his duty to his wife. Because of that sin his father, with the ancestors, had fallen into hell.

"By what vow can they be freed?" the king asked.

The sage told him to keep the Mokshada Ekadashi of the bright half of Margashirsha and give its merit to his father. "By that merit they will be freed," he said. "This is true, for it is the word of Brahma."

The king returned home. When Margashirsha came, he kept the vow with care, together with all his people, and gave its merit to his father. At that very moment flowers rained from the sky. His father and the ancestors were freed, and from the sky the father said, "Son, may it be well with you, may it be well with you," and went to heaven.

Sri Krishna said that no Ekadashi gives liberation more surely than this one. It is like a wish fulfilling gem, and whoever reads or hears of it gains the merit of the Vajapeya sacrifice.