Saphala Ekadasi 1957

King Yudhishthira asked Sri Krishna about the Ekadashi of the dark half of Pausha (Purnimanta; Margashirsha in Amanta). Sri Krishna said that it is called Saphala. As Shesha is the best of serpents, Garuda the best of birds and Vishnu the best of the gods, so Ekadashi is the best of vows. Then He told this story.

There was a city named Champavati, ruled by the royal sage Mahishmata. He had five young sons. The eldest was given to every kind of sin. He chased other men's wives, kept company with harlots and drank, and he wasted his father's wealth on these things. Seeing him like this, the king gave him the name Lumpaka, the robber. His father and brothers drove him out of the kingdom.

Lumpaka thought, "My own father and kinsmen have thrown me out. I will go into the dense forest, and from there I will plunder my father's city." He went into the forest and lived by killing living creatures, skilled in stealing and gambling. Once the night watchmen caught him, but when he said, "I am the son of King Mahishmata," they let him go, and he went back to the forest, living on meat and fruit.

Near the place where he lived there was a spot sacred to Vishnu, with a very old ashvattha tree that had great holiness in that forest. On the tenth day of the dark half of Pausha, Lumpaka ate only fruits of the trees. That night he had no clothes, and the bitter cold gave him no sleep beneath the tree. He lay as if dead, his teeth clenched on his lips, all night long. Even at sunrise on the day of Saphala he did not wake. Only when the sun stood overhead did he come to his senses.

He got up and stumbled like a lame man into the forest. He was faint with hunger and had no strength left to kill anything. By the time he came back to the tree the sun had set. "Alas, what will become of me?" he cried. He placed many fruits at the root of the tree and said, "May Vishnu be pleased with these fruits." That night, too, he could not sleep.

Lord Vishnu took his sleepless night as a vigil kept for Him, and the fruits as worship offered on Saphala. Lumpaka had kept the vow without knowing it. At sunrise a divine voice said, "By the grace of Saphala, son, you will obtain the kingdom." He said, "So be it," and at once took on a divine form, and his heart turned towards Vishnu.

He ruled the kingdom for fifteen years. By Krishna's grace he had a good wife and fine sons. Then he gave the kingdom to his son and went to Krishna, where no one grieves.

Sri Krishna said that those who keep Saphala are blessed and their lives bear fruit. Whoever tells or hears of it gains the merit of the Rajasuya sacrifice.