Today is Vaikunta Ekaadasi, the eleventh day of the waxing moon in the lunar cycle, in the month of Margazhi. It is believed that on Vaikunta Ekaadasi the devas and the asuras churned the ocean of Milk and the iridescent Lakshmi emerged with amrutham, also the earth was blessed with the like of Kalpa Vriksham, Kamadhenu and Parijatha pushpam – all blessings from Lord Vishnu.
On Vaikunta Ekaadasi, the day sacred to Lord Vishnu, many people throng the Vishnu temples to participate in the day-long sevais done to the Lord; the Lord is dressed tastefully with flowers and ornaments and taken in procession around the temple. These temples remain open the whole night, there are pravachanams, singing of Thiru-vaai-mozhi and other religious activities in the precincts of the kovil, the temple transforms into a hub of activity for the community living in the neighbourhood. Many people spend the whole day at the praharam of the temple.
Ranganatha swami temple in Sri Rangam, Padmanabha Swami temple in Thiruvananthapuram and the Parthasarathy Kovil in Chennai get inundated with devotees; the Swarga vaasal (the gate to the heavens) in the Sri Rangam temple is opened today – Vaikunta Ekaadasi is the only day when the vaasal is opened. (See the pic below)
Early in the morning utsava murthy of Lord Ranganatha dressed in rathna-angi (dress made of rathnam) is lead through the Swarga vassal or vaikunta vassal, also called the parama-pada vaasal, to the thousand pillared hall. It is believed that Lord Ranganatha led the great saint Nam–azhvaar to the heavens through this gate. This gate is then thrown open and the devotees rush through the gate to get the darshan of the mulavar in the supine anantha-sayana posture on ksheera-sagaram. People fervently pray that they too are lead to the swargam, parama-padam or vaikuntam by Lord Ranganatha. This is why Sri Rangam temple is called the Boologa Vaikuntam (the heaven on earth).
This day many people observe fast and attempt to stay awake the whole night in the belief that they will go to Vaikuntam, the heavenly abode of Lord Vishnu. This is not a difficult task for those who spend the night at the temple, or the tradition of staying awake the whole night might have begun with staying up at the temple participating in the activities at the temple. Life, in olden times revolved around the temple. Temple was the cultural, social and religious nerve centre for the community of people living in a village or small town. As cities developed and spread far from temples, the influence of the temple on an individual became less. Religious and philosophical motives governing certain traditions could have been replaced by more temporal intentions. For instance, in the earlier times people staying awake the whole night during Vaikunta Ekaadasi or Shiva Rathri, caught in the atmosphere of bakthi, would have spent the day and night meditating on the Lord. Later, as recent as my father’s days continuous shows of mythological movies were shown in the theatres to enable people to stay awake the whole night. The tradition continues sans the spirit. My father spoke of how he with his cousins spent the whole night at the theatre watching two to three movies at a stretch. When I was young three movies were telecast through the night on the Doordarshan. There are not too many mythological movies, so every year it was ‘Tirumaal Perumai’, ‘Sampoorna Ramayanam’ , ‘Bhakta Prahalad’ during Vaikunta Ekaadasi and ‘Thiru – vilayaadal’, ‘Thitruvarul- chelvar’ and ‘Saraswathiyin Sabadam’ for Shiva Rathri; by the time I was eleven and twelve I had seen these movies several times that I knew the dialogues in these movies by-heart.
The next day, the fast is broken with a special meal that is gentle on the body system whose metabolism would have slowed due abstention from food. A type of keerai (greens) called the avithu keerai is cooked with coconut, a pachidi (sauce) is made with gooseberry and sundakai vatha kuzhambu is included in the meal. This diet acts gentle on the stomach that might have developed acidity with a day’s fast and for ulcers of the mouth caused by staying up the whole night.
