Pitru Paksha, the fortnight of the ancestors, is the period of about sixteen days in which Hindus remember the dead of their families with water, food and prayer. It begins with the full Moon of Bhadrapada and ends with the new Moon, which is called Sarva Pitru Amavasya or Mahalaya Amavasya. During this time the tradition holds that the ancestors, the pitrs, are close to the living and are pleased by offerings made with faith. The day is one of remembrance and gratitude, and for many families it is a quiet and tender part of the year.
Months and tithis
The fortnight belongs to the bright Moon’s full day of Bhadrapada and the dark half that follows it. In the amanta calendar the whole dark half is Bhadrapada, and in the purnimanta calendar of north India it is Ashwina. It is the same fortnight under two names, as explained in the amanta and purnimanta guide. It runs through sixteen tithis: Purnima, then Pratipada to Chaturdashi, then Amavasya. The tithis are described under Pratipada, Ashtami, Chaturdashi and Amavasya.
Shraddha and tarpan
Shraddha is the rite of offering food, water, sesame and balls of rice or barley, called pinda, to the ancestors with prayers, and of feeding Brahmins or others in their memory. Tarpan is the simpler offering of water with sesame and barley. The word shraddha comes from shraddha, faith. The tradition names the Vedas, the Puranas and the Dharmashastra texts as its source, and the Markandeya, Garuda and Vishnu Purana, among others, discuss it. Practices vary by region and family, and what follows is the common outline.
A son, or the person responsible, performs the shraddha on the tithi of the death, counted by the Hindu calendar and not by the civil date. Before the offerings, a bath and clean clothes are customary, and a part of the food is set aside for a crow, a cow and a dog, as forms in which the ancestors are believed to come. Families who cannot do a full rite keep the day with a simple offering of water and sesame, and a meal given to someone in need.
Which tithi for whom
Each person is remembered on the tithi of their death. A few days have a customary use, and families and texts differ on the details:
- Purnima Shraddha is for those who died on Purnima, and is also held on the first day of the period by those who begin there.
- Navami, often called Matri Navami, is the day many families remember mothers and married women who died before their husbands.
- Chaturdashi is customarily kept for those who died by accident, violence or an untimely death, and not for those who died naturally on that tithi.
- Sarva Pitru Amavasya is the day for all ancestors, and for those whose tithi of death is not known, or who could not be remembered on their own day. If a family does only one shraddha in the year, this is the one.
Some families also name Trayodashi for children and Dwadashi for those who took sannyasa. These are common customs and not universal rules, and a family priest knows its own practice.
How the day and the time are fixed
Shraddha is done in the afternoon. The day for each tithi is the civil day on which that tithi is in force in the Aparahna, the fourth fifth of the day, which is how Drik Panchang lists it. If a tithi is in force in the afternoon on two days, the day with more of it is taken. If a tithi is so short that it misses every afternoon, it is placed on the day on which it is in force at sunrise, and a family may then do two shraddhas on the same day, as it happens in some years. The table lists every tithi for each city.
Within the day, the best times are the Kutup Muhurta and the Rohina Muhurta, which are the eighth and ninth of the fifteen parts of the daylight, around midday, and the shraddha should be finished before the Aparahna Kaal ends. The table gives the Kutup and Rohina window together and the time when the Aparahna Kaal closes. Drik prints these windows in full, and so does this page, even when the tithi begins or ends inside them.
Why cities differ
Each tithi begins and ends at one instant for the whole world, but the afternoon is at a different clock time in every city. A tithi that ends in the early afternoon in one city is over by the Aparahna in another, and the shraddha moves a day. The pattern repeats through the fortnight, and in some years two tithis share a day in one city and not in another. Use the table for your own city, and the any-city tool for others.
Related days
Mahalaya Amavasya is also the day when the goddess is invoked at dawn in Bengal, five days before the main days of Durga Puja, and the new Moon of this period leads to the nine nights of Sharad Navratri. The Amavasya vrat page lists every new Moon, a day on which many families also offer water to their ancestors, and the antyeshti samskara page describes the funeral rites to which shraddha belongs. The Purnima vrat page lists the full Moons.
Many families avoid starting new ventures, buying large items or holding celebrations in this period, a custom that comes from the tradition’s sense that these days are for the dead. It is a custom and not a rule of the shastra, and families differ.
A calm note
Grief arrives in its own way, and these days are for the living as much as for the departed. If your parent or relative died recently, or if you cannot find a priest or travel to Gaya, the tradition accepts a simple offering of water and sesame and a few minutes of silence as a sincere shraddha. If your family’s priest names a different day or time, follow them, as local practice and family custom come first.