Pitru Paksha 2026: Shraddh Dates, Timings & Vidhi

When Is Pitru Paksha 2026?

Pitru Paksha 2026 opens with Pratipada Shraddha on Sunday, 27 September and closes with Sarva Pitru Amavasya on Saturday, 10 October, which is the day most families observe if they observe only one.

Purnima Shraddha falls the day before the fortnight begins, on Saturday, 26 September, and is not strictly part of Pitru Paksha. It is Proshthapadi or Nandimukha Shraddha, kept for the generations beyond the great-grandfather and for maternal ancestors. A person who died on a Purnima tithi is not remembered here. Their shraddha is kept on Sarva Pitru Amavasya, 10 October.

These anchor dates are firm, and every panchang agrees on them.

If a shraddha has to be arranged and you do not know which day is yours, the short answer is 10 October. The longer answer is below, and for most families the correct day is an earlier one.

One thing to settle before you plan the day. Shraddha is an afternoon rite, not a morning one. The windows are further down.

Pitru Paksha 2026 Shraddh Dates

The list below is the Drik Panchang reckoning for New Delhi.

Three rows carry two entries, for different reasons. On 30 September, Chaturthi and Panchami are kept together, because a tithi that does not hold the afternoon of any day on its own is kept alongside the one before it. The other two are set by nakshatra rather than by tithi. Maha Bharani on 29 September is the day the Bharani nakshatra runs during the fortnight, and Bharani belongs to Yama, which is why shraddha on it is held in high regard. Magha Shraddha on 7 October is fixed the same way, by the Magha nakshatra. The 30 September row is also where the panchangs part company, which is dealt with further down.

Which Day Is Your Shraddha?

This is where a date list stops being enough.

The annual shraddha is performed on the tithi of the death, not on its calendar date. If a family member died on Krishna Paksha Saptami, whatever the English date was, their shraddha within Pitru Paksha is kept on Saptami, which in 2026 is Friday, 2 October. A death that happened to fall on 2 October in an earlier year does not by itself make 2 October the shraddha day.

Three tithis are exceptions to that rule. A death on Purnima, on Amavasya or on Chaturdashi is not kept on the matching row above but on Sarva Pitru Amavasya, 10 October.

So find the tithi on which the person died, then read it off the list above. Older families often have it recorded, and a pandit can usually work it back from the date, place and rough time of the death.

If the tithi is not known

This is common, and it is provided for. Where the death anniversary is not known or has been forgotten, the shraddha may be performed on Sarva Pitru Amavasya. The same day serves a household that cannot observe each tithi separately, since a single shraddha on this date is taken as sufficient for all the family’s ancestors. That is the reason for its other name, Sarvapitru Moksha Amavasya.

Amavasya Shraddha is also the appointed day for anyone who died on an Amavasya, a Purnima or a Chaturdashi tithi. If you are arranging a shraddha for the first time and the family record is thin, plan for 10 October 2026.

If the death was within the past year, speak to your pandit before fixing a date. The rites of the first year follow their own sequence, and which of them applies this fortnight depends on what your family has already performed.

Tithis with their own conventions

Navami is kept in many households for married women who died before their husbands, which is why it is called Avidhava Navami. Panchami is kept in some traditions for those who died unmarried, the sense of the name Kunwara Panchami. Chaturdashi is not a general day at all. It belongs to those who died by a weapon, in an accident, by suicide or by murder, and an ordinary death on a Chaturdashi tithi is kept on Sarva Pitru Amavasya instead. These conventions are not uniform between families, so ask your pandit what your tradition follows.

When Panchangs Disagree on a Tithi

The middle of the fortnight is not settled this year, and you should know that before fixing a date.

A tithi is not a day. It is a segment of the moon’s motion away from the sun, and it begins and ends at whatever hour it happens to, often mid afternoon. Shraddha is assigned to the day on which the tithi is running during the afternoon period, which is why a tithi that begins late or ends early can sit on a different date from the one a sunrise reading gives it.

That is what has happened around 30 September. Drik Panchang places Chaturthi and Panchami Shraddha together on Wednesday, 30 September. Other widely used panchangs, and an independent astronomical computation of the tithis, read 1 October as Panchami and run the list a day later through that stretch.

What everyone agrees on is worth stating plainly. Purnima Shraddha on 26 September, the start of the fortnight on 27 September and Sarva Pitru Amavasya on 10 October are the same in every source, and from Navami on 4 October the lists converge again.

So if your tithi falls between Chaturthi and Ashtami, follow the panchang your household has always used, and confirm the day with your pandit, who will apply the rule your tradition follows. A family that has kept the same reckoning for decades should not change it on the strength of a website. If the doubt cannot be settled, Sarva Pitru Amavasya covers it.

Shraddha Is an Afternoon Rite

Most families assume shraddha is a morning ritual and plan the day around a morning slot. It is not. Shraddha belongs to the afternoon, and that is probably the most useful fact on this page.

Three windows are given, in order of preference. For Sarva Pitru Amavasya on 10 October 2026 they are:

Kutup is the first choice and Aparahna Kaal the last and by far the longest, which is why most household shraddhas end up there. The three run consecutively, so the rite is begun in Kutup where the family can manage it.

The two columns are worth comparing. Surat’s Kutup Muhurat opens seventeen minutes after Delhi’s, because these windows are set from local sunrise and sunset rather than from a single national clock. Almost every page publishing these timings gives the Delhi figures alone. If you are in Surat or the towns around it, the left column is the one that applies to you.

The Amavasya tithi itself is the same everywhere. It begins at 09:35 PM on 9 October and ends at 09:19 PM on 10 October, because a tithi turns at one moment for the whole country. It is the daily windows, not the tithi, that move with your location.

The windows also shift a little from one day of the fortnight to the next, because sunrise and sunset do. On Purnima Shraddha, 26 September, Surat’s Kutup Muhurat runs from 12:06 PM to 12:54 PM and its Aparahna Kaal from 01:42 PM to 04:07 PM. The shape of the day is the same, the clock times are not, so take the windows for the tithi you are actually keeping rather than reusing the ones above.

Our Choghadiya timings cover the windows across a day, and the guide on choosing a shubh muhurat explains how they are set.

Shraddh Vidhi

The shape below is the common household form. The pandit performs the sankalp and the mantras, the family the offerings.

1. Bathe in the morning and wear clean, plain clothes. Many families keep a light fast until the rites are complete.
2. Clean the space and prepare the place of the rite facing south, the direction kept for the pitrs.
3. The karta, the family member performing the rites, wears the janeu apasavya, over the right shoulder, in the form kept for the pitrs, where the tradition uses it, and takes darbha or kusha grass in hand.
4. Take the sankalp, stating the name, gotra and tithi of the person for whom the shraddha is being performed.
5. Invite and seat the pitrs, offering asana, water, gandh, flowers, dhoop and deep.
6. Perform tarpan, the offering of water with black til, described below.
7. Prepare the pindas and perform pind daan where your family keeps it, offering them with mantras.
8. Set aside the portions of the cooked meal for the cow, the dog, the crow, the ants and the devas before anyone eats.
9. Offer brahman bhojan, and give daan and dakshina according to your means.
10. The family eats afterwards, and the leftover food is not treated casually.

The order varies between traditions and families. Confirm the sequence with your pandit rather than following a printed list exactly.

Tarpan

Tarpan is the offering of water to the ancestors, and it is the part of the fortnight most families perform themselves.

It is made facing south, with water taken in the cupped palms and poured out over the part of the hand between the thumb and the index finger, the portion kept for the pitrs. Black til is added to the water, and kusha or darbha grass is held in the hand or laid across it. The names of the departed are recited with the gotra as the water is offered, and the offering is repeated a number of times that your tradition sets.

Many households perform tarpan daily through the fortnight, whether or not their own tithi has arrived. It is not confined to this fortnight either. Every Amavasya through the year is regarded as suitable for pitru karma, which is why the rite also appears on days such as Hariyali Amavasya in Shravan.

Pind Daan

Pind daan is the offering of pindas, balls made of cooked rice or of barley flour, mixed with black til, ghee, honey and milk. They are offered on darbha grass with mantras and then given to a cow, or placed in flowing water, or disposed of as the tradition directs. It is performed as part of the shraddha on the family’s tithi and on Sarva Pitru Amavasya, normally with a pandit, because the sankalp and the mantras belong to him rather than to the household.

Gaya, Haridwar, Prayagraj and Nashik carry a long association with pind daan, and families who can travel often go once. That is a choice, not a condition. Pind daan performed at home on the correct tithi is complete as it stands.

Shraddh Samagri

Keep the list ready the evening before. What runs short on the day is usually kusha grass or black til.

• Black til and raw rice
• Kusha or darbha grass
• Cooked rice or barley flour for the pindas, with ghee, honey and milk
• A copper or brass vessel and a plate for the water offerings
• Clean water, and Ganga jal if the family keeps it
• White flowers, tulsi leaves, chandan, kumkum and akshat
• Deep with ghee or oil, wicks, dhoop and camphor
• Cotton thread, a fresh janeu if the karta’s tradition requires one
• Kheer and the simple sattvic meal the household prepares, cooked without onion or garlic
• Separate small portions kept aside for the cow, the dog, the crow, the ants and the devas
• Dakshina, and cloth or grain for daan

Confirm the list with your pandit a few days before, since families differ.

The Meal, and the Portions Set Aside

The meal cooked for a shraddha is plain and sattvic, made without onion or garlic. Kheer is prepared in most households, and the rest follows what the family used to cook for the person remembered.

Before anyone in the house eats, portions are set aside. One for the cow, one for the dog, one for the crow, one for the ants, and one for the devas, which your pandit will direct. These are the bali offerings, placed outside or given directly rather than left on the table. The crow’s portion is the one families watch for, and the old belief is that its acceptance means the offering has reached where it was sent. If no crow comes, the rite is not affected. The portion is set aside and offered, and that is what is asked.

Brahman bhojan follows, and the family eats after that. Feeding others, whether a brahman or anyone in need, is central to the day rather than an addition to it.

What Is Avoided During Pitru Paksha

These are practices of restraint rather than a list of penalties. They exist because the period is given to remembrance rather than to celebration.

Households generally avoid mangal karya during the fortnight. Weddings, engagements, griha pravesh, namkaran and other sanskars are not scheduled, and most families also put off buying a house, a vehicle or gold. The household is kept plain. Many avoid non vegetarian food, onion, garlic and alcohol, and some avoid haircuts and new clothes.

What is not avoided is necessary work. Medical treatment, a job that has to be started, an examination, a payment that falls due, travel that cannot be moved. None of that is held back, and no fault attaches to it. A family already dealing with a bereavement does not need a second burden invented for it.

If something genuinely cannot wait until after 10 October, say so when you speak to your pandit rather than assuming it is impossible.

Pitra Dosh and Pitra Dosh Nivaran

Pitra dosh is described in jyotish as an affliction in the chart connected with the pitrs, read chiefly from the placement of the Sun, Rahu and the ninth house, with Saturn and Ketu also weighed, rather than from anything that happened in the family. Its strength varies from chart to chart in the same way mangal dosh does. It is not a verdict on how a family treated its elders, and it is not something a household should be frightened into a puja over.

Where a reading does indicate it, Pitra Dosh Nivaran is performed with shraddh karma and tarpan, and daan. Narayan Bali is a separate rite with a different trigger. It is for a person who died by accident, by suicide or in some other sudden way, or whose last rites could not be completed, and it is normally performed at a tirtha such as Trimbakeshwar rather than at home. Pitru Paksha is a natural time for these observances, because the rites are being performed anyway, and they sit alongside the other astrology led remedies rather than apart from them. It is a remedy a family chooses after an honest reading of the whole chart.

Pitru Paksha in Surat and Gujarat

In Gujarat the fortnight is commonly called Shraddh or Shraddh Paksha, and it falls in the month Gujarati calendars record as Bhadarva Vad. North Indian calendars, which count the month from a different point, record it as Ashwin Krishna Paksha. The naming differs, the days do not.

Locally it is kept quietly. Households perform tarpan at home, families gather on their own tithi, and shraddh bhojan is arranged for brahmans and for those in need. There is little of it visible on the street, a marked change from the fortnight before. Anant Chaturdashi and the Ganesh visarjan fall on 25 September, and the city goes from that to Purnima Shraddha on the 26th.

The other end matters for planning. Sarva Pitru Amavasya is on Saturday, 10 October, and Navratri begins with Ghatasthapana on Sunday, 11 October. One day separates the close of the shraddh fortnight from the start of the Navratri that Gujarat keeps more fully than anywhere else, so families arranging both should settle the pandit for the two together.

Arranging a Shraddha with a Pandit

Pandit Ramkishan Joshi performs shraddh karma, tarpan and pind daan at homes in Surat, Navsari, Bardoli, Kamrej and Olpad.

To arrange one, get in touch with the following. If you do not have all of it, send what you have.

• The name and gotra of the person for whom the shraddha is being performed
• Their tithi of death, or the date, place and rough time of the death
• Your own location, so the afternoon window can be fixed for it
• Whether you want tarpan alone, or the full shraddha with pind daan
• Whether brahman bhojan is to be arranged, and for how many

Sarva Pitru Amavasya on 10 October is the fullest day of the fortnight by a wide margin, because it carries every household that does not know its tithi and every household that observes only once. If your shraddha falls there, arrange it early. The samagri list will be sent beforehand, and the window for your own location confirmed rather than taken from a New Delhi table.