The story is that the gods, having no other way to reach him, kept the Ekadashi vrat — and out of that a woman appeared, Ekadashi herself, and the door of Vaikunta was opened for them on the eleventh of the bright half of Margazhi.
So in every Vishnu temple in the south there is a north door that stays shut all year — the Paramapada Vasal, the gate of the highest place — and on this one morning, in the dark before sunrise, it is opened.
The line begins the night before. What people are doing is walking through a door, in order, which is an honest picture of the thing itself.
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