When is Pausha Putrada Ekadashi 2027?

In New Delhi, Pausha Putrada Ekadashi falls on Tuesday, 19 January 2027, with Ekadashi tithi running 10:27 AM (18 Jan) to 7:50 AM. It comes between late December and late January, so a calendar year can have two or none. The other Putrada Ekadashi, in Shravana, falls in July or August and has its own page.

Three honest reasons. The tithi can be running at the deciding moment on two days or on none. North India reckons the month purnimanta and the south and west amanta, which names the same krishna fortnight differently. And almanacs differ on which moment of the day decides an observance. The instants above are the astronomy; the day is an interpretation of them.

Pausha Putrada Ekadashi is the bright-half Ekadashi of Pausha, in late December or January — the second of the two Putrada ("giver of a son") Ekadashis, the other falling in Shravana. Couples hoping for a child have traditionally kept it, and it is kept today as a prayer for children's wellbeing. When it falls while the Sun is in Dhanu it is also Vaikuntha Ekadashi in South India; the page says so in the years it does.

It is told in the Bhavishya Purana, in Krishna's Ekadashi-mahatmya to Yudhishthira. The katha is retold in full above.

Not this year — both keep Tuesday, 19 January 2027. The Vaishnava rule reads Ekadashi at arunodaya, and Ekadashi already holds that day's arunodaya.

In New Delhi the fast is broken on Dwadashi after Ekadashi ends (no Dwadashi sunrise this year), after Hari Vasara ends (no Dwadashi sunrise this year). Couples who kept the vrat together usually break it together, with a tulsi leaf and a little of the makhan-mishri offered to Bal Gopal before the meal.

King Suketuman of Bhadravati and his queen Shaibya had everything but a child. Grieving, the king rode alone into the forest and came to a lotus lake where sages, the Vishvadevas, were reciting the Vedas. They told him that day was the Putrada Ekadashi of Pausha and that keeping it would bring him a son. He kept the fast there and broke it on Dwadashi, and in time a righteous heir was born. The full katha is above; the Shravana Putrada katha, King Mahijit's, is on its own page.

Both are Putrada, giver of a child, and both are kept for Vishnu by couples hoping for a child. Pausha Putrada falls in the bright half of Pausha, around January, and tells King Suketuman's katha; Shravana Putrada falls in the bright half of Shravana, around August, and tells King Mahijit's. Many couples keep both.

The name means giver of a son, from the katha's king who needed an heir, but families today keep it for children of either sex: couples hoping for a child, and parents praying for the health and future of their daughters and sons. Anyone who wishes may keep it as an ordinary Ekadashi too.

Eat a light meal on Dashami, then bathe early on Ekadashi and take the sankalp together. Worship Bal Gopal or Vishnu with tulsi, yellow flowers and makhan-mishri, chant the Santana Gopala mantra 108 times, read the katha and sing the aarti. Keep a fruit or water fast as health allows, give something to children on Dwadashi and break the fast in the parana window.

The Santana Gopala mantra, Om Devakisuta Govinda Vasudeva jagatpate, is the traditional prayer of couples hoping for a child, chanted 108 times before Bal Gopal. With it go the twelve-syllable Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya and the Krishnaya Vasudevaya prayer; all three, with their meaning, are in the mantra section.

Phalahar without grain: fruit, milk and curd, makhana, sabudana, potato, sweet potato and singhara or kuttu flour where the custom allows, with rock salt. In the January cold, couples keeping the fast together often share warm milk with dry fruit and a plate of fruit, and the makhan-mishri offered to Bal Gopal becomes prasad.

In some years. Vaikuntha Ekadashi is the bright-half Ekadashi that falls while the Sun is in Dhanu, the Tamil month of Margazhi, so it is Pausha Putrada in the years when this Ekadashi comes before the Sun enters Makara, and Mokshada in others. In those years this page notes it, and South Indian temples open the Vaikuntha Dwaram before dawn.

The traditional ones are acts of devotion: worship Bal Gopal together, chant the Santana Gopala mantra, offer makhan-mishri and a lotus, name each child in the sankalp and give to children in need on Dwadashi. They are prayers kept with faith, never a guarantee, and no substitute for a doctor's care.

Om Jai Jagdish Hare, given in full above, closes the morning puja and the evening lamps. Families who worship Bal Gopal often add a Krishna aarti or bhajan, and many sing the Ekadashi Mata aarti from their vrat book after the katha.