The generous Brahmani
In a village on the banks of the Yamuna lived a wealthy Brahmani widow, known for her boundless daan. She gave gold to the temples, cloth to the naked, cows to the childless, land to the landless — every day of her life. The rishis of the region spoke of her as an ideal of tyaga. But there was one thing she never gave: anna, cooked food. She herself ate sparingly and gave to no beggar even a handful of rice, holding the strange belief that food-daan brought too much personal karma back to the giver.
The empty storerooms of Vaikuntha
In the fullness of years the Brahmani died. By the merit of her many daans she was carried straight to Vaikuntha and received into a golden bhavan of astonishing beauty upon its southern gardens. The ornaments, the silks, the sandalwood, the cows in her sheds — all were there. But when she went to the storerooms of her own bhavan to find something to eat, they stood utterly empty. Not a grain of rice, not a drop of ghee, not a lentil. Puzzled and by now truly hungry, she went before Bhagwan Vishnu and folded her hands.
The teaching of Bhagwan Vishnu
Vishnu smiled gently. 'Devi, you gave everything a soul can give except the one substance that sustains life — anna. Here in Vaikuntha every bhavan is fed from the anna its owner once gave upon the earth. You gave none, and so your stores are empty. But Vaikuntha is a place of mercy. Return briefly to the earth on the Magha Krishna Ekadashi that approaches — the day called Shattila. Observe its vrat, and give anna and til in the six prescribed ways. Then return.' The Brahmani took birth once more in the same village, as the daughter of a pious Brahmin.
The six uses of til
The rishi who received her taught her the six uses of til which give Shattila its name: til-snana — bathing with water in which sesame has been steeped; til-tarpana — offering til-water to the pitrs; til-homa — pouring til into the sacred fire; til-daan — giving til to Brahmins and to the poor; til-bhojan — eating til as part of the parana meal; and til-udvartana — anointing the body with til-paste before the ritual bath. Til itself, the shastra says, was born from the sweat of Bhagwan Vishnu when he first churned the ocean of milk, and so it carries the direct capacity to purify the body of stored karma.
The full storerooms
The Brahmani in her new janma observed the vrat exactly. She fasted, kept jagran with Vishnu Sahasranama, performed all six til-kriyas at their appointed hours, and on Dwadashi fed a hundred Brahmins with rice, ghee, jaggery and til. When at the end of that life she returned to Vaikuntha her golden bhavan was still there, and now the storerooms were full to bursting — enough to feast all her guests for eternity. Since that day the shastra has declared: the daan of anna is greater than the daan of gold, and the Shattila Ekadashi is the vrat that opens the giver's own storerooms both here and hereafter.
"Purifies through the medium of til, the substance born from Vishnu's own sweat. Blesses the vrati with abundance of anna in this life and full storerooms in Vaikuntha in the next. Especially prescribed for those who have been prosperous but neglected anna-daan."