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Today · 23 September 2026

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Ask about your own chart

The fourteen doshas, checked against your placements — not an article about them.

Every site will tell you what Manglik dosha is. This one runs the classical rule on your chart and prints the conditions it tested, so you can see why the answer is what it is.

Pitru Paksha · begins in 4 days · 26 September – 10 October

Sixteen days for the ancestors. One question about your own chart.

Shraddha and tarpan are done for the ones who came before you. Whether your kundli carries Pitra Dosha — the Sun afflicted by Rahu, Ketu or Saturn, or malefics in the ninth house — is a question about you, and this fortnight is when its remedies are meant to be done.

What is done

  • Tarpan at midday, facing south — water with black sesame, barley and kusha grass
  • Kheer, and a share set aside for the crow, the cow and the dog before anyone eats
  • No onion, garlic or masoor dal in the shraddha meal
  • Sarva Pitru Amavasya on 10 October, for every ancestor whose tithi nobody remembers

The report prints the rule it tested, and the remedies for this fortnight

Pitru Paksha

Pitru Paksha, start to finish

This year: 26 September – 10 October · begins in 4 days

Sixteen days, one rule, and a few dates set aside for particular people. What the fortnight is, whose shraddha falls on which day, what is done each day, what is not — and what to do if you have nothing to offer.

What Pitru Paksha is

From the full moon of Bhadrapada to the new moon of Ashwin — sixteen days, called Pitru Paksha, Mahalaya, or in north India kanagat, because the Sun is in Virgo (Kanya) through them. It is the ancestors' fortnight. The belief is that in these days the ancestors come to their descendants' homes and wait for food and water. Those who receive it go back satisfied; those who do not go back empty-handed.

Who are the ancestors? In the texts, three generations — father, grandfather, great-grandfather — and three on the mother's side. The shraddha names these six by name and gotra, and everyone before them together as 'all the ancestors'. They are not a separate class of gods; they are the people whose photograph is on the wall at home, and the ones before them, who have no photograph.

It is not a time of mourning. The word shraddha itself comes from shraddha, faith — done in gratitude, not in grief. What is 'not done' in these days is not done so that the attention stays where it belongs, not because the days are inauspicious.

Where it comes from

From the story of Karna — who gave gold all his life but never food and water to his ancestors, because he did not know who they were. In heaven he was served gold to eat. He was allowed sixteen days back on earth, and did what had been left undone. Those sixteen days are Pitru Paksha. The whole story is on this page under 'Karna and the sixteen days' — with three more, which tell why Gaya, why the Ganga, and what becomes of the ancestors when the shraddha stops.

Whose shraddha on which day

There is one rule: the shraddha of an ancestor is done on the tithi of their death, in the Pitru Paksha — the bright or dark half does not matter, only the tithi. On top of that, tradition keeps a few days for particular people:

Purnima (Proshthapadi Purnima)

The first day of the fortnight. The shraddha of those who died on a full moon. In many homes Mahalaya begins here; in others, the next day, on Pratipada.

Pratipada to Trayodashi

Each to their own tithi. An ancestor who died on the second tithi gets the second; one who died on the tenth gets the tenth. A day on which no tithi falls for your house needs nothing — though tarpan can be done every day.

Bharani shraddha

The day the Moon is in Bharani nakshatra — usually the fourth or fifth tithi. Special for those whose death is less than a year old. Tradition holds it equal in merit to a shraddha at Gaya.

Panchami — Kunwara Panchami

For those who died unmarried. Children too.

Navami — Matri Navami

The mothers' day, and the day of women who died while their husbands lived — also called Avidhava Navami. The women of the house have the shraddha done in the names of a mother-in-law, a grandmother, a nani.

Dwadashi

The shraddha of renunciates — the ones who left the house, and for whom the house still gives the pind.

Chaturdashi — Ghata Chaturdashi

For those who died before their time — accident, weapon, suicide, murder. Note: someone who died a natural death on a fourteenth tithi is not offered to on this day but on the Amavasya.

Amavasya — Sarva Pitru Amavasya

The last day. Those whose date nobody remembers, those who went too long ago, those whose day was missed for any reason — all of them. Every ancestor of the line.

What is done each day

The hour

Midday. The time for shraddha is the Kutup and Rauhina muhurta — the eighth and ninth muhurta of the day, roughly half past eleven to one. Not early morning, not evening. It is the one rule broken most often.

Tarpan

Facing south. In rites for the ancestors the sacred thread goes over the right shoulder, not the left — this is apasavya. Kusha in hand. Water with black sesame poured from between the ring finger and the thumb, the part of the hand called the pitru tirtha — three times in each ancestor's name. For the ones whose names are lost, 'whoever was born in our line'.

Pind daan

Cooked rice or barley flour worked with sesame, ghee and honey into round pinds. Set on kusha and offered with the ancestor's name and gotra. Each ancestor on their own tithi. If that is beyond your means, tarpan alone is a shraddha.

Panchabali

As soon as the food is cooked and before anyone eats, five shares set apart: the cow, the dog, the crow, the ants, and the gods (into the fire). The crow's share goes on a roof or in the open — in the tradition the crow is the ancestors' messenger, and until it eats the shraddha is not counted complete.

Feeding and giving

A brahmin is fed; or, if that cannot be arranged, someone hungry — the texts do not forbid it. Kheer without fail, because it is held to be what the ancestors want most. And whatever is within your means — cloth, sesame, barley, an umbrella, shoes.

What is not done in these days

By tradition, nothing new is begun in these sixteen days — no wedding, no housewarming, no new purchase, no thread ceremony. Hair and nails are not cut, and the shraddha meal has no onion, garlic, masoor dal, meat or drink. The reason is not that the days are unlucky; the reason is that the fortnight belongs to the ancestors and the attention should not be divided. Treating it like an eclipse, something to be afraid of, misreads the story — Karna was given these days as a chance, not as a sentence.

If you cannot do the shraddha

For those with no brahmin, no materials, no time, there is still a way, and it comes from the texts, not from our generosity. Green fodder to a cow, a plate of food to somebody hungry, and at midday, facing south, one lota of water — with sesame if there is any.

There is a well-known saying: one who has nothing at all should stand alone, face south, raise both arms and say — I have no wealth and no grain; I have faith, be satisfied with that. Sita offered pinds of sand at Gaya, and they were accepted.

The last day, and the day after

Sarva Pitru Amavasya closes the fortnight. The tithi that was missed, the ancestor not remembered, the one whose date nobody knows — today is for all of them. The day after, on Ashwin Shukla Pratipada, comes the shraddha of the maternal grandparents — the matamaha shraddha, done by the daughter's son. And that same day Navratri begins. The ancestors are seen off, then the Goddess arrives: that is the order.

The full vidhi, the samagri, the do's and don'ts and this year's muhurat for Sarva Pitru Amavasya are on its own page.

Sarva Pitru Amavasya — vidhi, samagri, muhurat →

And your kundli

Pitra Dosha is the astrological side of Pitru Paksha. In a chart the Sun stands for the father and the forefathers, and the ninth house is the ancestors' house. The report tests two rules — Rahu, Ketu or Saturn on the Sun, and malefics in the ninth — and prints whether the dosha forms in your chart, how strongly, and the remedies that are done in exactly this fortnight. The shraddha is for everyone; the remedies are for those whose chart carries the dosha.

The stories behind the shraddha

Four stories, told whole

Every rite of the ancestors' fortnight comes out of a story — why the water carries sesame, why the crow eats first, why Gaya, why the Ganga. These are the four, in full, as they are told.

  1. 1Karna and the sixteen daysRead →
  2. 2Jaratkaru and the ancestors hanging by a blade of grassRead →
  3. 3Sita's shraddha at GayaRead →
  4. 4Bhagiratha and the sixty thousandRead →

The story · Mahabharata — the story Pitru Paksha comes from

Karna and the sixteen days

The man who gave all his life found nothing to eat in heaven. This is the story Pitru Paksha grows out of — and its point is not punishment but a second chance.

1.Birth

Kunti was unmarried when the sage Durvasa gave her a mantra: call any god to mind, and he would give her a son. She tried it on the Sun, half in play, and the boy born of the Sun's portion came wearing armour and earrings that were part of his body — unbreakable from birth. Afraid of what people would say, Kunti set the infant in a basket and let the river take him. The basket came to Adhiratha, a charioteer of Hastinapura. His wife Radha raised the boy, so he was called Radheya, and all his life he was 'the suta's son' — the charioteer's boy. He did not know who his mother was, who his father was, or who his ancestors were.

2.The vow of giving

Karna's rule was that after his midday offering to the Sun he would refuse nothing to anyone who asked. Everybody knew the rule — Indra too. Before Kurukshetra, Indra came at that hour dressed as a brahmin and asked for the armour and the earrings, the very things that made Karna impossible to kill. Karna knew it was a trick; the Sun had warned him in a dream. He cut the armour and the earrings from his own body and gave them anyway. Indra, ashamed, gave him in return the Vasavi Shakti, a weapon that would work once. The name daanveer, the hero of giving, was not given lightly.

3.Gold, never food

All his life Karna gave gold, jewels, land, cows. Nobody who came left empty-handed. But there was one gift he never made — food and water in the name of his ancestors. No tarpan, no pind, no shraddha. Not because he was mean, but because he did not know whose son he was, or in whose name to pour the water. Even if he took Adhiratha's forefathers as his own, they were not his line.

4.The truth, far too late

Just before the war Krishna told him, and then Kunti herself: he was the son of the Sun and the eldest brother of the Pandavas. Karna promised Kunti that he would kill none of her sons but Arjuna — she would keep five, whichever of the two survived. But he did not leave Duryodhana. The man who had stood by him when everyone else laughed at the charioteer's son could not be abandoned on the day of battle. On the seventeenth day his chariot wheel sank into the earth, and in that moment Arjuna's arrow ended him.

5.The plate in heaven

After death Karna reached heaven. Food was set before him — but there was no food on the plate. There was gold. There were jewels and ornaments. He was hungry, and in front of him lay exactly what he had spent his life giving to others. One day, the next day, every time the same. He asked: what is this? I gave all my life, and I cannot get a handful of rice?

6.The answer

The answer came — from Indra in one telling, from Yama in another: what you gave has come back to you. You gave gold; you receive gold. But food and water you never gave anyone — not to your ancestors, not to a hungry man in their name. What was never given, where would it come from here? Karna said: I did not know who my ancestors were. I learnt whose son I was the day before the war.

7.Leave to return

Hearing this, he was given leave — fifteen days in one telling, sixteen in another — to go back to the earth and do what had been left undone. Karna went back. He offered tarpan in his ancestors' names, gave pinds, shared food, fed the hungry, fed brahmins. For sixteen days he did what he had not done in a lifetime. Then he returned to heaven, and this time there was food on his plate.

8.Those same sixteen days

From the full moon of Bhadrapada to the new moon of Ashwin — those sixteen days are Pitru Paksha, also called Mahalaya. The point of the story is not punishment. The point is that a man who had never given — and had not even known he should — was still given the chance to go back. The fortnight is that same chance, every year: to do what was left undone. And its last day, Sarva Pitru Amavasya, is for all the ancestors whose date nobody remembers — exactly like Karna, who did not even know their names.

The story · Mahabharata, Adi Parva (the Astika episode)

Jaratkaru and the ancestors hanging by a blade of grass

An ascetic found his ancestors hanging head-down in a pit, held by a single blade of grass that a rat was gnawing through. The blade was himself. This is the story of the debt to the ancestors.

1.The wandering sage

Jaratkaru was a sage of the Yayavara line. Hard austerity, lifelong celibacy, and a rule never to stay more than one night in one place — that is what yayavara means, the ones who keep moving. No house, no wife, no child. Austerity was everything to him, and he believed austerity settled everything.

2.The pit

One day, wandering, he came to a pit. In it hung people head-down, feet up — and the thing they hung from was a single blade of grass. A rat was gnawing slowly through it. The blade would not hold much longer, and below was dark.

3.Who are you?

Jaratkaru asked: who are you, and why do you hang like this? They said: we are the Yayavara sages. We are falling because our line is about to end. One descendant is left, a fool called Jaratkaru, who out of greed for austerity has taken no wife. This blade is him — our last thread. The rat is time. The day he dies without a child, the blade snaps and we all fall. There will be nobody to give us a pind, to pour water, to say our names.

4.I am that fool

Jaratkaru said: that fool is me. Tell me what to do. The ancestors said: your austerity is for you, not for us. What we need is a child — somebody after you to carry our name, to do the shraddha. Austerity pays the debt to the gods and the debt to the sages; the debt to the ancestors is paid only through offspring. Marry. Have a son. Then we live.

5.The conditions

Jaratkaru agreed, on his own terms. The girl must be given to him as alms, not asked for; her name must also be Jaratkaru; and he would not support her — that would be her family's work. If such a girl were found he would marry, otherwise not. The conditions were the kind nobody expects to be met.

6.Vasuki's sister

But the serpents needed to give exactly such a girl. Kadru had cursed her serpent sons to burn in King Janamejaya's snake sacrifice. Brahma had said that the one to save them from the curse would be born of the marriage of Vasuki's sister and the sage Jaratkaru. Vasuki's sister was also named Jaratkaru. Vasuki gave her as alms and took her keep on himself. The marriage was made.

7.Leaving

One day the sage fell asleep with his head in his wife's lap. The sun began to set and the hour of the evening rite was slipping away. She was caught — wake him and he would be angry; leave him and his rite would be missed. She woke him. He flared: you have broken my rule — and got up to go. She stopped him: where is the son this marriage was made for? He said one word, asti — it is. It is in your womb. And he left, and never came back.

8.Astika

A son was born, and from asti he was named Astika. That boy grew up and walked into Janamejaya's snake sacrifice, where the serpents were falling into the fire, and with his wit had the rite stopped — the serpents lived. And in the pit, the Yayavara sages: their blade did not snap. The line went on, somebody was born to say their names, and they rose.

9.Three debts

The scriptures say a person is born owing three debts — to the gods, to the sages, to the ancestors. The first is paid with worship, the second with study, and the third with children, and the shraddha those children do. This story is about the third. The ancestors do not stay up by their own strength; they hang from a thread that somebody down on the earth is holding. Shraddha is that thread.

The story · Gaya Mahatmya and the Ramayana as told in Gaya — why pind daan is done there

Sita's shraddha at Gaya

There was nothing to offer, the hour was passing, and the father stood hungry. Sita made pinds of sand — and when the witnesses lied, a river, a cow, a plant and a priest were cursed, and one tree was made undying.

1.A father's death, in exile

Rama had not been long in the forest when Bharata came to Chitrakoot with the news — Dasharatha was gone, dead of grief for his son. Rama offered water and pinds for his father there, on the bank of the Mandakini. But the tradition also tells that when the three of them, going from tirtha to tirtha, came to Gaya, Pitru Paksha was running, and Rama resolved to do his father's shraddha on the bank of the Phalgu — because a shraddha at Gaya is held to be the highest of all.

2.Gone for the offerings

A shraddha needs things — grain for the pinds, sesame, kusha, and a brahmin. Rama and Lakshmana went towards the town to fetch them, and Sita waited on the bank under a banyan tree. Time passed. The hour for shraddha is the kutup kaal, around midday, and it was running out. Rama and Lakshmana did not come back.

3.The father's call

Then Sita heard a voice — Dasharatha's. 'Daughter, I am hungry. The hour is passing. Give me the pind.' A hand rose out of the sand, held out as if to receive. Sita was alone. No grain, no sesame, no brahmin. And her father-in-law stood before her, asking.

4.Pinds of sand

Sita took up the sand of the Phalgu and made pinds of it. She took the Phalgu's water. In the shade of the banyan, facing south, she offered the pinds in her father-in-law's name. She named her witnesses — the river Phalgu, a cow standing near, a tulsi plant, a brahmin of the place, and the banyan she stood under. Dasharatha accepted the pinds of sand. The raised hand withdrew, satisfied.

5.Rama's doubt

Rama and Lakshmana came back with everything. Sita told them the shraddha was done — with pinds of sand, and father himself had come and taken them. Rama could not believe it. Pinds without grain? A shraddha without a brahmin? He said: let us ask the ones you made witnesses.

6.The witnesses lied

They asked the Phalgu — the river said, I saw nothing. They asked the cow — she shook her head. The tulsi kept quiet, then denied it. The brahmin said: nothing of the sort happened. One by one, all four lied. Only the banyan told the truth — yes, here, in my shade, she gave pinds of sand and King Dasharatha accepted them. In one telling Dasharatha then appears himself and confirms what Sita said.

7.The curses

Sita cursed the four. The Phalgu: you will run dry on top, your water will flow under the sand — and to this day the Phalgu is antahsalila, dig the sand and you find water, never on the surface. The cow: you will be worshipped, but you will eat leavings, and people will honour your back, not your face. The tulsi: you will not grow in Gaya. The brahmin: however much you are given, you will never be satisfied, you will always ask for more. And to the banyan, a blessing — you will be undying; whoever offers a pind in your shade, their ancestors will be satisfied. That is the Akshaya Vat of today, where the Gaya pind daan is completed.

8.What the story means

This is why pind daan at Gaya is held highest — it is said that whoever has had their shraddha done at Gaya needs no shraddha again. But the story says one more thing, and it matters more: shraddha is made from shraddha — faith. No offerings, no brahmin, no time — even a pind of sand is accepted, if the one who gives it is true. And the one who tells the truth becomes undying.

The story · Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda — the descent of the Ganga

Bhagiratha and the sixty thousand

Sixty thousand ancestors lay in a heap of ash, and ordinary water could not release them. It took three generations and a river brought down from the sky. That is why tarpan is done with Ganga water.

1.Sagara's sons

King Sagara of Ayodhya, of the Ikshvaku line, had two queens. Keshini bore one son, Asamanjasa; Sumati, by a boon, bore sixty thousand, who came from a gourd and were raised in jars of ghee. Asamanjasa turned out cruel and was sent from the kingdom; his son Anshuman was good and stayed with his grandfather.

2.The sacrificial horse

Sagara undertook the Ashvamedha. The horse was set loose, and Indra grew afraid — a king who completes a hundred horse-sacrifices takes Indra's seat. Indra stole the horse and tied it in the underworld, beside the hermitage of the sage Kapila, who sat there in meditation.

3.The digging

Sagara sent his sixty thousand sons to find the horse. They dug up the earth — so much of it that the hollow they left is called the sagara, the sea. In the underworld they found the horse, and near it Kapila, deep in meditation. They took him for the thief. Sixty thousand surrounded him, abused him, moved to strike. Kapila opened his eyes — and at his glance the sixty thousand were burnt to ash where they stood. One heap.

4.Anshuman and Garuda

When the sons did not return, Sagara sent his grandson Anshuman. He reached the underworld, found the horse, and saw the ash of his uncles. He wanted to offer them water, but there was none. Then Garuda appeared — Sumati's brother, the sixty thousand's maternal uncle. He said: ordinary water will not release them. Only when Ganga's water falls on this ash will they go to heaven. Bring the Ganga to the earth.

5.Three generations

Anshuman took the horse home and the sacrifice was completed. Then he practised austerity for the Ganga — and failed. His son Dilipa became king; he too practised austerity, all his life, and the Ganga did not come. Dilipa's son was Bhagiratha. Bhagiratha handed the kingdom to his ministers and went to Gokarna to sit in austerity — a thousand years in one telling, arms raised, eating once a month.

6.Brahma, then Shiva

Brahma was pleased and agreed to release the Ganga, but said: the earth cannot bear her force; if she falls, the earth will split. Somebody must catch her. Only one can — Shiva. Bhagiratha practised austerity again and won Shiva over. The Ganga came down, and came down proud, meaning to sweep Shiva away. Shiva bound her in his matted hair. For a year she wandered in his locks and found no way out. Bhagiratha prayed again, and Shiva let one stream go — into the Bindu Sarovar.

7.Jahnu's sacrifice

The Ganga followed Bhagiratha's chariot. On the way lay the sacrificial ground of the sage Jahnu; the Ganga swept it away. In anger Jahnu drank the whole river. At the prayers of the gods and of Bhagiratha he let her out through his ear — which is why the Ganga is Jahnavi, Jahnu's daughter.

8.Water on the ash

Bhagiratha ahead on his chariot, the Ganga behind — which is why she is Bhagirathi. He led her down to the underworld, where the ash of the sixty thousand lay. Ganga's water fell on the ash, and in that moment Sagara's sixty thousand sons went to heaven. Brahma said to Bhagiratha: as long as this water flows, your ancestors will live in heaven like the gods. And the Ganga will be known by your name.

9.Which is why

Which is why the bones go into the Ganga. Why a drop of Ganga water is mixed into the tarpan, even in a lota at home. Why Haridwar and Kashi are places of shraddha. And the story says one more thing, perhaps the most important: the ancestors were not released by their own strength. They were released by the stubbornness of a descendant three generations down, who gave up everything to finish what his grandfather and father had left undone.

Today

What the sky is doing today

Computed from where the planets actually stand, for this date — not written for one.

Wednesday, Wednesday, 23 September 2026Tithi 12 Shukla PakshaNakshatra Shravana

Rahu Kaal12:13 PM – 1:44 PM
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The month

Hindu calendar

Every tithi computed from where the Moon actually stands — not a table typed in once and left.

September 2026

Bhadrapada–Ashwin·Vikram Samvat 2083

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1Kr 4
2Kr 5
3Kr 7
4Kr 8
5Kr 9
6Kr 10
7Kr 11
8Kr 12
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11New
12Sh 1
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26Full
27Kr 1
28Kr 2
29Kr 3
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