Shattila Ekadashi is the Ekadashi of the dark half of Magha (Pausha in the amanta calendar of the west and south), the coldest stretch of the year. Its katha is about a woman who kept every fast with great discipline but never once gave food to anyone, and what she found waiting for her when her life on earth was over.
For the day it next falls on, look at the Ekadashi vrat dates list; the page for each Ekadashi there also gives the parana time for your city, so you know when the fast may be broken. Here we tell the story in our own words.
The katha
Yudhishthira said, "Krishna, tell me about the Ekadashi in the dark half of Magha. What is it called, and how is it kept?"
Krishna said that the same question had once been put to the sage Pulastya by the sage Dalbhya, who wanted to know how ordinary people, caught in the faults of daily life, could find release. Pulastya told him of sesame: in the month of Magha one should bathe with sesame, rub the body with it, offer it in the fire, pour it with water for the ancestors, eat it and give it away. "Six ways," he said, "and so the Ekadashi of this fortnight is called Shattila."
Then Krishna told the story that goes with it, the one he had once told to Narada.
The woman who kept every fast
Long ago, on earth, there lived a brahmin woman who had been widowed young. She gave her whole life to worship. She kept every vrat in the calendar, sometimes for a month at a time, and fasted so often that her body grew thin and weak. She was sincere, and in many ways admirable.
But there was one thing she never did. In all those years she never gave food to anyone: not to a guest, not to a priest, not to a hungry passer-by. She gave her own hunger to God, and kept everything else to herself. Krishna said that he saw this and thought, "Her body is purified by fasting, and she will reach my world. But no one has ever been fed by her hand."
So he took the form of a wandering mendicant, a poor man with a begging bowl, and went to her door.
"Why have you come?" she asked.
"For alms," he said, and held out the bowl.
She looked at him for a moment, then bent, picked up a lump of clay from the ground, and dropped it into his bowl. He thanked her and went away.
The empty house
In time the woman's life came to its end, and because of all her fasting she reached the heavenly world. She was given a house there, and it was beautiful, but when she went inside she found nothing in it. There was no grain in the store, no food in the kitchen, no wealth of any kind. In some tellings there was a single mango tree in the yard, and that was all.
She came to Krishna, troubled. "I kept so many fasts and worshipped you all my life. Why is my house empty?"
He told her gently. "You gave your hunger, but you never gave food. The only thing you ever placed in a beggar's bowl was a lump of clay, and so this is what has come back to you." Then he told her what to do. "The wives of the gods will come to see you, curious about the new arrival. Do not open your door at once. Ask them first to tell you about Shattila Ekadashi, and open only when one of them has told you all of it."
She did as he said. When the divine women came, she kept the door closed and asked her question. One after another they turned away, until at last one of them stayed and told her everything: the six uses of sesame, the fast, the worship and the giving. The woman opened the door, welcomed her, and kept Shattila Ekadashi exactly as she had heard it.
When the fast was complete, her house was transformed. The stores filled with grain, the rooms with good things, and her new home became as full and bright as it was beautiful.
Krishna ended by saying that anyone who keeps this day with sesame and gives food and sesame to others will not find an empty house, in this world or the next.
Reading the story calmly
The story uses an empty house in heaven to make a simple point, and it is not a threat. No household is being warned that a missed gift will be punished. The woman is not a villain either: she was devoted and disciplined, and the story treats her with patience. Krishna does not shame her; he shows her what was missing and gives her a way to complete it. Families tell it as a reminder that a fast turned only inward is half a fast, and that devotion is meant to reach other people's plates.
What the day is kept for
The mahatmya says that the sesame of this day removes faults gathered over many lives, and it speaks of each seed given as a year in the heavenly world. These are the text's words of praise. What most people take from Shattila is the lesson of the story: a fast is completed by giving.
The day also fits its season. Magha is cold, sesame and jaggery keep the body warm, and the poor need blankets and food more than at any other time. Giving til and gud on this Ekadashi is one of the most practical customs in the whole Ekadashi year.
How it is kept
On Shattila Ekadashi many people add sesame to their bath water and use a little sesame paste before bathing, and some offer sesame into a small havan. Water with sesame is offered to the ancestors, sesame laddoos or a sesame-and-jaggery sweet are taken as part of the fast food, and sesame, jaggery, grain, blankets or warm clothes are given away. The rest of the day follows the usual Ekadashi practice, set out on the Ekadashi puja vidhi page, with parana on Dwadashi; anyone unwell, pregnant or elderly can keep a fruit fast and still do every one of the six sesame customs.
The Ekadashis around it
Before this comes Pausha Putrada Ekadashi, in the bright half of Pausha, kept with a prayer for children. After it comes Jaya Ekadashi, a few days after Vasant Panchami, the story of two singers freed from a curse. Tithi timings for your city are in the panchang, and the choghadiya helps if you like to start the morning puja in a good period.