Parivartini Ekadashi 2026: 22 September Vrat Vidhi, Katha and Parana Time

2026-08-25

Parivartini Ekadashi 2026 is on Tuesday, 22 September. The tithi ends at 21:43 and parana in Delhi is 06:10-08:35 on 23 September. Why Vishnu is said to turn over, the Vamana-Bali katha, full vrat vidhi and city-wise parana times.

Parivartini Ekadashi falls on Tuesday, 22 September 2026. It is the Ekadashi of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapada, and it is the one Ekadashi in the year named after a movement — a turning. All times on this page are computed for Delhi (IST). Sunrise shifts by city, and the parana window shifts with it, so there is a city-wise table further down.

When is Parivartini Ekadashi 2026?

The tithi and the fasting day are not the same thing, and that is where most of the confusion around this date begins.

The tithi opens on Monday evening at 20:00, but a vrat is not kept from the moment a tithi opens. It is kept on the day whose sunrise falls inside the tithi. At Delhi sunrise on 21 September the running tithi was still Shukla Dashami; at sunrise on 22 September, 06:10, Ekadashi is running. So the fast is on the 22nd and is broken on the 23rd. If the fifteen-day rhythm behind all of this is new to you, the arithmetic is worked out in why Ekadashi comes every fifteen days.

Four names, one day

This single Ekadashi carries more names than any other, and search results treat them as separate festivals. They are not.

• Parivartini — from parivartan, turning. The name most used in North India.
• Parsva — from parshva, side. The same idea in different words; we have covered this day under that name in Parsva Ekadashi, 22 September 2026.
• Padma — the lotus. Used in the Padma Purana tradition and common in Maharashtra.
• Vamana Ekadashi — because Vamana Dwadashi, the appearance day of the Vamana avatar, follows immediately on 23 September.
• Jaljhulani Ekadashi or Dol Gyaras — in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Braj and parts of Gujarat, where the deity is carried in a dol to a river or tank for a ceremonial bath.

One honest caveat on the last one: in some regions Jaljhulani is observed on the Dwadashi rather than the Ekadashi. Both practices are old and both are current. Follow your family or your local mandir; there is no single correct answer to impose here.

What “Vishnu turns over” actually means

Through the four months of Chaturmas, Vishnu is described as resting in yoga-nidra on the coils of Shesha. The sleep begins on Devshayani Ekadashi in Ashadha and ends on Dev Uthani Ekadashi in Kartika. Halfway through, on Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi, he is said to turn from one side to the other without waking.

That is the entire reason for the name, and it is worth saying plainly what the texts do not do. They give no cause for the turning, no mechanism, no further meaning. There is no shastric claim that the turning corresponds to a seasonal shift, a change in the body, or anything measurable. Explanations of that kind are modern additions, and we are not going to add to them. What the image genuinely does is mark time: the sleep is not over, but it has passed its midpoint. The vrat on this day is an acknowledgement of that midpoint, nothing more elaborate.

The exact midpoint of Chaturmas

The midpoint is a tithi count, not a calendar count. Ashadha Shukla Ekadashi to Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi is two lunar months; Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi to Kartika Shukla Ekadashi is another two. Because lunar months are not equal in civil days, the two halves are not exactly equal in days either — from Parivartini on 22 September 2026 to Dev Uthani Ekadashi on 20 November 2026 is 59 days. The tradition means the midpoint in tithis, and that is the sense in which it is exact.

A practical consequence people often get wrong: the Chaturmas restrictions do not lift here. Marriages, griha pravesh and other auspicious beginnings remain deferred until Dev Uthani Ekadashi on 20 November. Parivartini is a marker in the middle of the period, not a release from it.

Parana, and how the window is worked out

Parana means breaking the fast, and it is done after sunrise on Dwadashi. Three conditions apply, and this year all three are unusually easy:

1. After sunrise. Never before.
2. After Hari Vasara — the first quarter of Dwadashi. Dwadashi runs from 21:43 on the 22nd to 22:50 on the 23rd, a span of 25 hours 07 minutes; a quarter of that is 6 hours 17 minutes, ending at 04:00 on 23 September. That is before sunrise everywhere in India, so this year Hari Vasara imposes no restriction at all.
3. Within Dwadashi, which does not end until 22:50 that night — a very wide margin.

Within those limits the preferred slot is pratah-kala, the first fifth of the daylight period. Here is where a small astronomical fact makes the table unusually tidy: 23 September is the September equinox, and daylight on that date measures 12 hours 05 minutes in every city below, from Kolkata to Bengaluru. So the parana window is 2 hours 25 minutes long everywhere — only its start shifts with local sunrise.

If you miss the window, the tradition asks you to skip the madhyahna period rather than eat inside it — in Delhi that is roughly 11:00 to 13:25, shifting with local sunrise — and to break the fast after it. What you must not do is carry the fast past 22:50, when Dwadashi ends.

The katha: Bali, Vamana and the third step

The story attached to this Ekadashi is narrated in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, where Krishna tells it to Yudhishthira.

King Bali, grandson of Prahlada, was a Daitya and an extraordinary devotee of Vishnu — generous, truthful, faultless in his vows. On the strength of that merit he took the three worlds and displaced Indra. The devas, unable to fault his conduct, went to Vishnu. Vishnu did not oppose Bali by force. He took birth as the son of Aditi and Kashyapa in the form of Vamana, a brahmachari of dwarf stature, and walked into Bali’s great sacrifice on the bank of the Narmada.

Bali offered him anything. Vamana asked for three paces of ground. Shukracharya, reading who the boy was, warned his king to refuse. Bali would not break a promise already made. He poured the water of the gift, and Vamana became Trivikrama: one step covered the earth, the second covered the heavens, and there was nowhere for the third. Bali bowed and offered his own head, and the third step set him in Sutala.

The ending is the part most retellings drop, and it is the part that matters here. Vishnu granted Bali a boon and chose to stay with him as his doorkeeper. In the four months of the divine sleep, it is Bali who has him. That is why the Chaturmas story and the Vamana story are told as one, and why this Ekadashi — the midpoint of that sleep, the eve of Vamana Dwadashi — carries the katha.

The Purana attaches the usual phala-shruti, the merit of an ashvamedha, to keeping the fast. We report that as what the text says. It is a statement of the tradition, not a guarantee we can make on its behalf.

Vrat vidhi, day by day

Dashami, Monday 21 September

• One sattvik meal before sunset. No rice, no masoor dal, no onion or garlic.
• Pluck the tulsi leaves you will need today. Tulsi is not plucked on Ekadashi itself.
• Keep celibacy and a quiet routine from this evening.

Ekadashi, Tuesday 22 September

• Bathe before sunrise and take the sankalp facing east.
• Puja of Vishnu, preferably in the Vamana form; a Shaligram or a Laddu Gopal serves equally. Offer panchamrit, yellow cloth, yellow flowers and the tulsi kept from yesterday.
• Japa of Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, and a reading of the Vishnu Sahasranama if you can manage it.
• Read or hear the katha above. Light a lamp at dusk. Night jagran is optional, not obligatory.
• Grain is avoided all day. On the specific reason rice is singled out, see why rice is avoided on Ekadashi.

Dwadashi, Wednesday 23 September

• Bathe, do a short puja, and give food or daan before you eat — this is part of the vrat, not an extra.
• Do the parana inside your city’s window. Break with tulsi water first, then something simple: curd rice, fruit, khichdi.

On the fast itself: nirjala, phalahar and ekbhukta (one meal) are all recognised grades of this vrat. If you are diabetic, pregnant, elderly or on regular medication, take the phalahar or ekbhukta form without hesitation. The shastra permits the substitution; it has never asked anyone to injure themselves for a vrat.

What the panchang shows on 22 September

Tuesday, Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi, Uttara Ashadha nakshatra at sunrise, yoga Atiganda, moon in Makar. Rahu kaal in Delhi is 15:15 to 16:46.

Atiganda is counted among the inauspicious yogas, and some readers will see that and worry. It does not affect the vrat. Ekadashi is a nitya vrat — fixed by the tithi, not selected for a muhurta — so yoga and rahu kaal simply do not enter the decision. They are relevant to elective work: a purchase, a journey you are starting, a document you are signing. Move those outside the rahu kaal window, which you can check for your own city on the rahu kaal page.

One detail worth noticing. The Dwadashi that follows runs under Shravana nakshatra, whose presiding deity is Vishnu, and Dwadashi’s own tithi-deity is Vishnu as well. The Vamana appearance is placed exactly there, and the placement is not accidental.

Six mistakes people make with this date

1. Fasting on 21 September because the tithi begins that evening. The vrat follows sunrise, so it is the 22nd.
2. Plucking tulsi on the Ekadashi. Pick the leaves the day before.
3. Treating Parivartini as the end of Chaturmas. It is the middle. The restrictions lift on 20 November.
4. Using the Delhi parana window in another city. In Mumbai it starts 18 minutes later, in Kolkata 44 minutes earlier.
5. Thinking Parsva, Padma and Parivartini are three days. They are three names for 22 September.
6. Waiting for “an auspicious time” to do the parana. The window itself is the auspicious time; delaying past it is the error, not eating within it.

Every time on this page is computed for Delhi unless the table says otherwise. Sunrise differs by city, so check your own before fixing the parana hour.