मोक्षदा एकादशी व्रत कथा च गीताजयन्तीमाहात्म्यम्

Mokshada Ekadashi falls on the eleventh lunar day of the bright fortnight, Shukla Paksha, in the month of Margashirsha (November–December). The katha is recorded in the Brahmanda Purana and in the Padma Purana's Uttara Khanda, chapter 39. There, Lord Krishna tells Yudhishthira that observing this fast carries the power to liberate one's ancestors, pitrus, from suffering in the lower realms and to bestow moksha, spiritual liberation, on the one who keeps it. The day is also globally celebrated as Gita Jayanti, since tradition holds that Lord Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra on this very tithi.

In the city of Champakanagar there once ruled a pious king named Vaikhanasa, under whose reign the citizens lived peacefully and followed the Vedic virtues with evident sincerity. One night the king had a vivid and disturbing dream: he saw his departed father suffering terrible torment in the realms of Naraka. In the dream his father cried out to him directly, saying that sinful deeds from a past life had brought him to burn in those fires, and asking his son to perform some supreme austerity capable of delivering him from the torment.

Deeply shaken, King Vaikhanasa summoned his ministers and royal priests at first light and described the dream in full. On their advice, he traveled into the mountain forests to the hermitage of Parvata Muni, a sage said to possess knowledge of the past, present, and future alike, trikala-jnani. The king bowed before the sage, recounted the dream exactly as he had seen it, and asked what act might free his father from such suffering.

Parvata Muni entered deep meditation and, upon returning, told the king that in a previous birth his father had committed a grave injustice against his own lawful wife, acting out of arrogance, and that this karmic debt was the true cause of his present torment. To free him, the sage instructed:

King Vaikhanasa returned to his kingdom with renewed faith. When Margashirsha Shukla Ekadashi arrived, he kept the fast together with his queens and his entire household, worshipping Lord Damodara with Tulsi leaves, incense, and lamps through the day and night exactly as the sage had prescribed. On the following Dvadashi morning, the king offered heartfelt prayers to Lord Vishnu and formally dedicated the merit of the fast to his departed father. In that instant, his father's soul was released from its suffering and assumed a luminous divine form. He ascended to the heavens in a flower-bedecked celestial chariot, vimana, showering blessings of long life and spiritual fulfillment upon his son before departing.

Because tradition holds that the Bhagavad Gita's seven hundred verses were spoken on this exact day, Mokshada Ekadashi is kept by many households as Gita Jayanti as well. Devotees undertake Gita Parayana, a full reading of all eighteen chapters, or focus their recitation on chapter twelve, Bhakti Yoga, and chapter fifteen, Purushottama Yoga. Gifting a copy of the Bhagavad Gita to another on this day is considered vidya daan, the gift of knowledge, and is regarded as among the most meritorious forms of charity associated with the observance.

The katha's structure places unusual weight on a single act: the king does not perform any ritual aimed directly at his father's suffering, nor does he seek out a different remedy once he learns the cause. He simply keeps the fast with full sincerity and, at the moment of breaking it, chooses to direct its merit elsewhere. This is the same structure of transferable merit found in several other Ekadashi kathas, and Mokshada's name, meaning the giver of liberation, points specifically to this capacity: the fast's fruit is understood to be strong enough to reach a soul in Naraka, which is why pitru tarpan, dedicating the day's merit to one's ancestors, remains central to how the fast is kept even now.

Devotees begin the day with sankalpa, the formal vow taken before sunrise that names the devotee's intention, whether for personal liberation or, as in the katha, for an ancestor's peace, and dedicates the fast to Lord Vishnu in his form as Damodara. The fast typically excludes grain for the full day, with many devotees keeping a stricter fruit-only or water-only discipline through the night. Puja is offered at the customary morning and evening hours, with sandalwood paste, fresh Tulsi leaves, and fruit presented at the altar, and the day is spent chanting verses of the Gita rather than in ordinary activity.

The fast is broken, parana, within the proper muhurta on Dvadashi morning, after offering food to the Lord and giving dakshina to priests or the needy, never before the prescribed hour. For a devotee keeping the fast on an ancestor's behalf, as King Vaikhanasa did, this closing act of dedication, formally transferring the day's merit at the moment of parana, is held to be the point at which the fast's liberating power actually takes effect.