Mokshada Ekadashi 2025 Date

About Mokshada Ekadashi

The one Ekadashi whose merit is offered to the dead, not the living. Falling on Margashirsha Shukla 11, it shares its date with Gita Jayanti — the day Krishna is believed to have spoken the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna at Kurukshetra. Devotees fast for ancestors trapped in hell.

The vrat katha, told by Krishna to Yudhishthira, centres on King Vaikhanasa of Champaka-nagari. He dreamt of his father crying out from a hellish realm. Sage Parvata told him to keep this fast and formally transfer its merit to his father — who then ascended to heaven. This is why Mokshada Ekadashi is unusual among the twenty-four Ekadashis: the fruit of the fast is given away, not kept. The deity worshipped is Damodara — a form of Krishna — with lamps, incense and offerings. The story appears in the Brahmanda Purana's Ekadashi mahatmya. The overlap with Gita Jayanti deepens the meaning: on the same tithi Krishna gave Arjuna the teaching that frees the soul, so devotees often read or recite the Gita through the day, especially the second chapter on the deathless self.