Pitru Paksha

Pitru Paksha is the fortnight set aside for remembering ancestors through Shraddha, Tarpana and acts of charity. A widely told Mahabharata-related legend explains its spirit through Karna. After his death, Karna is said to have received gold and jewels in the ancestral realm but no food, because during life he had been extraordinarily generous with wealth yet had not knowingly offered food to his ancestors. He was allowed to return to earth for a period to make food and water offerings in their memory; this period became associated in popular tradition with Pitru Paksha. Beyond the legend, the fortnight follows the principle that family life is part of an intergenerational chain. People remember parents and forebears, offer water with sesame, prepare Shraddha meals, feed Brahmins or people in need and give charity, usually on the lunar tithi connected with the ancestor’s death.

Pitru Paksha is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

Each ancestor is offered on the tithi they died on. Water with sesame is poured, a meal is cooked and served to a brahmin and to a crow, and the crow's is left on the roof or the wall. Nothing new is begun in the fortnight - no wedding, no purchase, no housewarming - and Navratri starts the morning after it ends.

Gaya draws the largest numbers, where the pind is offered at the Falgu. Called Mahalaya Paksha in the south and Sorah Shraddha in the north; Bengal ends it with Mahalaya, the dawn broadcast that opens Durga Puja. The tithi kept is the one the person died on, so within a family the day differs.