Shraddha Tithi Calculator: Annual Shraddha and Pitru Paksha Day

Enter the date, time and place of death above, and the year to start from, and this free calculator finds the shraddha tithi: the tithi in force at the time of death, with its lunar month. It then gives the next five dates of the annual shraddha at the place where the family keeps it, with the Kutup and Rohina muhurtas and the afternoon window, and the person’s day in Pitru Paksha for each year. If the time is not known, it shows every tithi that ran on that date with the dates for each.

How it works

A tithi is a lunar day: the Moon gaining 12 degrees on the Sun. The tool finds the moment of death in universal time, using the time zone in force at the place of death on that date (if the clocks went forward and the time entered did not exist, or went back and it came twice, the tool says so and how it read the time), and reads the Sun and Moon from the NASA JPL DE440 tables this site uses for every panchang. The tithi running at that moment is the shraddha tithi. The lunar month is the amanta month, from one new moon to the next, and its name follows the sign of the sidereal Sun (Lahiri) at the new moon that opens it. A month in which the Sun enters no new sign is an Adhika, or extra, month.

For each later year the tool finds the same tithi in the same month and chooses the civil day by the rule for shraddha. Manusmriti (3.278) says that, as the dark fortnight is preferred to the bright one for shraddha, the afternoon is preferred to the forenoon. So the day is the one on which the tithi is in force in the Aparahna, the fourth of the five equal parts of the daytime, at the place where the shraddha is kept. This is the same rule as our Pitru Paksha dates, and the tool gives the same day for every tithi of that fortnight.

Within the day, the Dharma Sindhu names the eighth and ninth of the fifteen muhurtas of the daytime, Kutup and Rohina, as the main time for the rite; as our Pitru Paksha page says, the shraddha should be over before the Aparahna ends. Both windows are worked out from local sunrise and sunset.

Reading the result

The first line names the tithi and the month, with the purnimanta name of the month when it differs. The table lists the next five dates from the year you chose, with the hours the tithi runs in local time and the shraddha time. The note column says why a date was chosen when it was not plain: a tithi in the afternoon on two days, a very short tithi, or an Adhika month in that year.

The second table gives the person’s day in Pitru Paksha, the fortnight of the ancestors at the end of Bhadrapada (Ashwina in the purnimanta count), and Sarva Pitru Amavasya beside it. Pitru Paksha runs from the full moon through the dark fortnight. For a death on another tithi of the bright fortnight, the tool shows the tithi of the same number in the dark fortnight, as the Nirnaya Sindhu reads the rule, with Sarva Pitru Amavasya beside it. For a death on Purnima, it shows the Purnima Shraddha with the Dwadashi Shraddha and Sarva Pitru Amavasya beside it, the days the Dharma Sindhu names. Both texts are quoted under “Where traditions differ” below, and the family priest can say which day the family keeps.

Under the tables, Add to my calendar saves the annual dates and the Pitru Paksha days as a calendar file (.ics), each as a whole day at the place where the shraddha is kept, with the tithi and the shraddha time in the event’s note. The file is made in your browser and is not sent to us.

Short tithis, two-day tithis and Adhika months

Tithis are not equal in length. A long one can be in the afternoon on two days; the tool takes the day with more of it in the afternoon and shows both. A short one can miss the afternoon of every day; it is then placed on the day it is in force at sunrise. A tithi that is in force at no sunrise at all is called a kshaya tithi, and a printed panchang names no day for it, which is why families sometimes cannot find their tithi in the calendar. The tool still finds it and places it by the same rule.

For Adhika months the tool follows the Dharma Sindhu (shraddha prakarana). The annual shraddha is kept in the regular (shuddha) month, even in a year that also has an Adhika month of the same name. If the death itself was in an Adhika month, the shraddha is kept in the Adhika month in a year that has that Adhika month again, and in the regular month of the same name in other years. The Pitru Paksha days are in the regular Bhadrapada. An Adhika month comes about once in two to three years: our tables hold 66 of them from 1900 to 2074.

Very rarely the Sun enters two signs within one lunar month, and the name of a month is skipped that year: a kshaya masa. Our tables hold two from 1900 to 2074, Margashirsha in 1963 and Magha in 1983. The texts we follow do not settle the annual shraddha of a death in that month for such a year, so the tool gives no date for that year, says why, and leaves the day to the family priest.

Where traditions differ

The texts discuss the day at length, and practice varies. Some decide a tithi that is in the afternoon on two days for the first day rather than the day with more of it; the tool shows how much of the afternoon each day has, so a priest can apply the family’s rule. Some families take the tithi that was running at sunrise on the day of death instead of the tithi at the moment of death; if you tick that the time is not known, the tool lists every tithi of that date with its hours, so the one at sunrise can be read off and its dates used. The same Dharma Sindhu passage on Adhika months also speaks of doing it twice (dwiraavritti) in an Adhika month from the second year on, which can be read as keeping the annual shraddha in both the Adhika and the regular month; the tool keeps one month, as described above and as that passage directs for the yearly (pratyabdika) shraddha, and gives the other month’s date in its note for families who keep both. The first annual shraddha after a death has its own counting in the Dharma Sindhu when an Adhika month falls in that first year, and the tool flags that date. Regional calendars and the purnimanta count give the month another name but the same day. Where the family priest follows another custom, that custom comes first.

The day in Pitru Paksha for a death in the bright fortnight rests on two texts. The Nirnaya Sindhu of Kamalakara Bhatta, in its second chapter (p. 218 in Jwala Prasad Mishra’s Hindi edition), quotes a verse of Katyayana: ya tithir yasya masasya mritahe tu pravartate, sa tithih pitripakshe tu pujaniya prayatnatah, the tithi in force on the day of death is the tithi to honour with care in Pitru Paksha. The verse names the tithi, not the fortnight, so a death on Shukla Saptami is remembered on the Saptami of Pitru Paksha, and the tool reads it that way. Kamalakara himself adds atra mulam chintyam, that the source of this verse is doubtful, so the family priest’s word comes first, and the tool shows Sarva Pitru Amavasya beside the day in every case. For a death on Purnima, the Dharma Sindhu of Kashinath Upadhyaya (second pariccheda, p. 69 in the Khemraj edition, Bombay, 1907) says the Mahalaya is done on Purnima, the Bhadrapada Purnima that opens Pitru Paksha, or, since Purnima is not in the dark fortnight, on Dwadashi, Amavasya or a similar tithi. Families follow one of these, so the tool shows the Purnima Shraddha, the Dwadashi Shraddha and Sarva Pitru Amavasya.

What it does not do

It does not give the monthly shraddhas of the first year, the rites of the first days after a death, or the order of the rite itself, which the family priest guides. It does not decide whose shraddha is kept by whom. It covers deaths from 1900 to 2074 and dates up to 2074, the years the planetary tables behind it hold. For a place far north or south where the Sun does not rise or set on some days, a date may be missing; the tool names the year and says why. The antyeshti samskara page describes the funeral rites to which shraddha belongs, and the Amavasya list gives the new moons on which many families offer water to their ancestors.

Frequently asked questions