Krishna Ekadashi, the Second Fast of the Month

Krishna Ekadashi is the twenty-sixth tithi overall, the eleventh day of the dark fortnight, and the second of the month's two Ekadashi fasts. Like its bright-fortnight counterpart it is kept as a day of fasting sacred to Vishnu, observed with abstention from grains and beans. In the fivefold grouping it is a Nanda tithi, its deities the Vishvadevas. Particular dark-fortnight Ekadashis carry their own names and merit through the year. The waning crescent is now thin and close to the Sun. The tradition holds both monthly Ekadashis to be among the most meritorious of regular observances, so the fast recurs every fortnight. These are the devotional conventions of Vaishnava practice, resting on the fixed count of eleven days from the full moon.

That the fortnight's second Ekadashi carries the identical devotional weight and fasting obligation as the first, despite falling in the waning rather than waxing half, is itself doctrinally significant in Vaishnava practice: unlike most tithis, where the dark fortnight's instance is treated with more caution than the bright, Ekadashi's sanctity is held to be undiminished by lunar phase, since the fast's purpose, purification and devotion to Vishnu, does not depend on the Moon's light but on the fixed eleven-day count from the preceding full or new moon. Regional traditions differ on precisely which of two possible Ekadashi dates to observe when the tithi spans a calendar-date boundary in a particular way, a live point of disagreement among different Vaishnava lineages and their respective almanacs.