PITRU PAKSHA – The River Behind You

Pitru Paksha 2026 online ancestral journey · September 26 – October 10 · 16 tithis · daily live sessions at 7:00 AM CET with recordings.

You did not begin with yourself.
A river of lives, choices, prayers, sacrifices, gifts, silences and unfinished stories flows behind you.

Pitru Paksha is the sacred ancestral fortnight: a time to remember those who came before us, offer nourishment through water and prayer, give thanks for the life that reached us through them, and consciously release what no longer needs to travel forward.

This is not an event built around fear of the ancestors. It is a journey into śraddhā—sincere reverence.

For one complete lunar passage, we will learn the meaning of every tithi from Bhadrapada Purnima through Sarva Pitru Amavasya. We will study the foundations of Shraddha and Tarpanam, learn an accessible home practice, and work with one distinct remembrance or reconciliation ritual for each stage of the descent from Full Moon to New Moon.

We do not come to reject our lineage.

We come to see it clearly.
To honour what was given.
To grieve what was missing.
To stop repeating what has completed its purpose.
And to carry forward what is worthy of becoming a blessing.

Global Session Times

Daily live session at 7:00 AM Central European Time (CET), September 26 – October 10

• Central Europe (Berlin · Paris · Budapest) — 7:00 AM
• London — 6:00 AM
• Tallinn · Helsinki · Athens — 8:00 AM
• India (IST) — 10:30 AM
• New York (EDT) — 1:00 AM
• Tulum (Quintana Roo) — 12:00 AM (midnight)
• Mexico City — 11:00 PM the previous evening
• California (PDT) — 10:00 PM the previous evening

A recording is included for every session if the live time does not suit your location.

Why Begin with Day 0?

Our journey begins on Bhadrapada Purnima, the Full Moon immediately preceding Pitru Paksha proper.

Traditional sources describe Bhadrapada Purnima—also called Shraddhi Purnima or Proshthapadi Purnima—as an auspicious ancestral observance associated with the more distant lineage, the Nandimukha Pitrs and maternal ancestors. Pitru Paksha proper then begins with Krishna Pratipada and proceeds through the fifteen waning-moon tithis to Amavasya.

For this reason, Purnima becomes Day 0: The Opening of the Ancestral Field.

It is the threshold rather than the first step—the day on which we prepare the vessel, establish intention, remember the river behind us and ask to enter the fortnight with humility.

This creates a complete journey of 16 tithi teachings within a 15-day event container.

What Is Tarpanam?

The Sanskrit root tṛp means to satisfy, nourish or bring contentment. Tarpanam is the ritual offering of water made with remembrance and mantra.

Water carries memory, prayer and intention. Black sesame represents purification and ancestral nourishment. Darbha or kusha grass establishes sacred containment. The spoken name, gotra or simple remembrance gives direction to the offering. Swadhā is the sacred principle through which an offering is received by the ancestral realm.

During this immersion, you will learn both:

• The traditional architecture of Tarpanam—sankalpa, direction, sacred materials, hand position, water offering, mantra and completion.
• A simple household form for participants who do not have access to a river, temple, family priest or elaborate ritual materials.

Where family, regional or sampradaya instructions exist, they remain primary. This immersion is designed to deepen understanding and support sincere practice; it does not replace a priest-led Shraddha, first-year death rites or the specific procedures of your family tradition.

What We Will Explore

• Who the Pitrs are and how the ancestral field is understood in the Hindu tradition
• Pitru Rina—the debt of gratitude owed to those through whom life arrived
• The difference between Shraddha, Tarpanam, Pinda Dāna, Pitru Puja and Dāna
• Why the waning lunar fortnight is offered to ancestral remembrance
• How to determine an ancestor’s Shraddha tithi
• What to do when the name, gotra or death tithi is unknown
• Maternal, paternal, biological, adoptive, spiritual and forgotten lineages
• The meaning of water, black sesame, darbha, rice, flame, food and the southern direction
• The traditional use of Savya, Nivita and Apasavya for those who wear the sacred thread
• How to offer through Pitru Tirtha, with clear physical demonstration
• How to create a simple temporary ancestral altar at home
• How to include those who were excluded, forgotten, estranged or never spoken about
• The place of food offering, hospitality, feeding and charity during Pitru Paksha
• How remembrance differs from attachment
• How to close the ritual field carefully after Amavasya

The Three Movements of the Journey

Movement I — Remember

Purnima to Panchami

We open the field, learn the ritual foundations, name the lineages and restore the ancestors to conscious memory.

Movement II — Reconcile

Shashthi to Dashami

We meet the inherited patterns carried through body, home, relationship, duty and the feminine and masculine streams of the family.

Movement III — Release & Bless

Ekadashi to Amavasya

We simplify, honour renunciants and young lives, hold space for difficult deaths, remember the unknown and complete the fortnight through collective offering and dāna.

The 16-Tithi Journey

The dates below use the India reference calendar for 2026. Because a tithi begins and ends at an astronomical time rather than civil midnight, the local observance date can differ in other parts of the world. Every participant will be encouraged to follow a locally calculated panchanga for the actual household offering.

Day 0 — September 26

Bhadrapada Purnima · The Opening of the Ancestral Field

Teaching: Why Purnima stands at the threshold of Pitru Paksha; Nandimukha ancestors, distant generations and the maternal stream; entering through gratitude rather than fear.

Guided ritual: Create the ancestral altar. Place a clean vessel of water, a lamp and a white flower. Begin a lineage map with the names you know and leave visible space for those whose names have been lost. Take a sankalpa for the full passage and make the first offering of clear water.

Reflection: What reached me because someone before me endured, protected, prayed, worked or loved?

Day 1 — September 27

Krishna Pratipada · The First Stream

Teaching: Pratipada Shraddha and the beginning of the waning journey; the special remembrance of maternal grandparents where no one else is available to perform their rites.

Guided ritual: Learn the complete simple Tarpanam sequence. Offer first to the maternal stream and then to all known ancestors whose memory forms the first visible layer of the family.

Reflection: Through whom did life first become personal for me?

Day 2 — September 28

Krishna Dwitiya · The Two Rivers

Teaching: The paternal and maternal lineages as two rivers meeting in one body; honouring both without romanticising either.

Guided ritual: Light two lamps or place two flowers—one for each lineage. Offer water separately to the maternal and paternal streams, then unite them in one final prayer for harmony within the living family.

Reflection: Which qualities came through each side of my lineage?

Day 3 — September 29

Krishna Tritiya · Three Generations
Special observance: Maha Bharani

Teaching: The three immediately preceding generations; name, gotra and the direction of an offering; Bharani as a profound symbol of containment, passage, consequence and the laws that hold life and death.

Guided ritual: Speak or write the names of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who have passed. Offer three streams of sesame water—one for each visible generation—followed by one offering for all who stand behind them.

Reflection: What pattern has repeated across at least three generations? What gift has repeated with it?

Day 4 — September 30

Krishna Chaturthi · The Unfinished Knot

Teaching: Remembering ancestors who left behind unfinished responsibilities, ruptures, exclusions or unresolved relationships. Understanding responsibility without assuming guilt for everything that preceded us.

Guided ritual: Write one inherited burden or unfinished family duty on a small piece of paper. Offer water while acknowledging it truthfully. Place the paper beneath the altar—not to destroy it impulsively, but to hold it in conscious awareness until the closing ceremony.

Reflection: What belongs to my responsibility, and what does not belong to my burden?

Day 5 — September 30

Krishna Panchami · Lives Beyond the Expected Path

Teaching: Kunwara Panchami and the remembrance of departed unmarried family members; making space for lives that did not follow the expected sequence of marriage, household or descendants.

Guided ritual: Offer a fresh flower, fruit or simple sweet to those who died unmarried or before fulfilling the life their family imagined for them. Speak their belonging without reducing them to what remained incomplete.

Reflection: Who in the lineage was remembered mainly through what they did not become?

2026 calendar note: Chaturthi and Panchami both receive observance on September 30 in the India calendar. They remain two separate teachings and two distinct ritual intentions.

Day 6 — October 1

Krishna Shashthi · What the Body Remembers

Teaching: The body as a meeting place of inheritance—constitution, habits, labour, survival intelligence, nourishment and care.

Guided ritual: Prepare one simple sattvic food connected with your family or region. Offer the first portion symbolically, then share food with another person or make an anna-dāna contribution in the ancestors’ names.

Reflection: Which inherited habit nourishes life? Which one now asks to change?

Day 7 — October 2

Krishna Saptami · The Solar Lineage

Teaching: Surya as the visible principle of lineage, vitality and continuity; the difference between inherited authority and conscious leadership.

Guided ritual: Offer arghya to the rising Sun, followed later by the day’s Tarpanam. Thank the ancestors who protected the family’s continuity and consciously release one distorted pattern around authority, pride or recognition.

Reflection: What does my lineage ask me to illuminate rather than repeat?

Day 8 — October 3

Krishna Ashtami · Strength Without Burden

Teaching: The difference between ancestral strength and inherited hypervigilance; honouring those who carried impossible weight without making suffering the price of belonging.

Guided ritual: Make the water offering from a copper vessel if available. Hold a stone briefly as a symbol of inherited weight, then place it on the earth after Tarpanam with a prayer: May strength remain; may unnecessary burden return to rest.

Reflection: What have I mistaken for strength simply because my ancestors had no other choice?

Day 9 — October 4

Krishna Navami · Matri Navami · The Mothers of the Lineage

Teaching: Navami as a traditional day of special remembrance for departed women of the family—mothers, grandmothers, sisters and other feminine ancestors; the nourishment, labour, grief and invisible intelligence carried through women.

Guided ritual: Offer a flower, milk-based sweet or a beloved family food in honour of the departed women. Include women whose contributions were overlooked, whose names were changed or forgotten, and those who mothered without biological motherhood.

Reflection: Which woman in my lineage deserves to be named more fully?

Day 10 — October 5

Krishna Dashami · The Householders

Teaching: Remembering ancestors who built homes, raised families, held land, preserved knowledge, carried professions and sustained the lineage through Grihastha life; Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha within family responsibility.

Guided ritual: Repair, clean or restore one small object or space inherited from the family. Offer Tarpanam with gratitude for the practical structures that made your life possible.

Reflection: What have I inherited that now deserves responsible stewardship?

Day 11 — October 6

Krishna Ekadashi · The Ancestors of Restraint

Teaching: Ancestors who lived through spiritual discipline, ethical restraint, devotion or simplicity; the freedom created when appetite no longer governs consciousness.

Guided ritual: Choose one form of voluntary simplicity for the day—simple food, silence, reduced consumption or release from a habitual distraction. Offer water and chant a Vishnu remembrance or the simple Pitru mantra taught in the course.

Reflection: What becomes possible when I stop feeding what cannot satisfy me?

Day 12 — October 7

Krishna Dwadashi · Sannyasi Shraddha
Special observance: Magha Shraddha

Teaching: Dwadashi remembrance for renunciants, sannyasis and spiritually devoted ancestors; Magha Nakshatra and the ancestral throne; the spiritual lineage that may exist beside the biological lineage.

Guided ritual: Recite selected names from Vishnu Sahasranama or another lineage-appropriate sacred text. Offer a clean cloth, book or useful item in charity in honour of teachers, renunciants and spiritual ancestors.

Reflection: Which teachings—not only which genes—made me who I am?

Day 13 — October 8

Krishna Trayodashi · The Young and the Tenderly Remembered

Teaching: Trayodashi remembrance for departed children and those who died young; approaching grief without spiritual explanation, blame or forced closure.

Guided ritual: Offer white flowers, fruit or a simple sweet. Use fewer words. Allow the offering to be an act of tenderness rather than an attempt to explain the unexplained.

Reflection: Can remembrance be complete even when a life felt incomplete?

Day 14 — October 9

Krishna Chaturdashi · Ghat Chaturdashi · The Difficult Departures

Teaching: The tithi traditionally reserved for those who died through accident, violence, weapons, suicide or other unnatural circumstances; how to remember a difficult death without becoming overwhelmed by its story.

Guided ritual: A trauma-sensitive silent sesame-water offering. No participant will be asked to disclose details. We will ground the body, light a protected flame and pray that the manner of death no longer eclipses the wholeness of the life.

Reflection: Can I honour the person without allowing the final event to become their entire identity?

Day 15 — October 10

Sarva Pitru Amavasya · Mahalaya · The Great Completion

Teaching: The universal ancestral day—for known and unknown ancestors, forgotten tithis, missed observances, Purnima deaths and ordinary-cause Chaturdashi deaths; remembrance as completion rather than continued attachment.

Guided ritual: A complete collective Tarpanam for both lineages, the forgotten, the excluded, benefactors, teachers and all beings through whom life was supported. We complete with optional Pinda Dāna demonstration, food offering, dāna, mantra, blessing of the descendants and conscious dismantling of the temporary altar.

The papers held beneath the altar are revisited. What requires living action becomes a vow. What is not ours to carry is released.

Reflection: What blessing will move forward through me because I remembered?

Daily Session Format

Each day includes:

• The tithi and its traditional ancestral significance
• One teaching on lineage, remembrance or conscious inheritance
• Clear Tarpanam instruction or refinement
• Mantra, meditation or guided silence
• One practical ritual for the day
• A journal contemplation
• A simple act of dāna, service or integration where appropriate

Recommended Delivery

• Daily 15–25 minute teaching and ritual guidance released to participants
• A printable ritual card for every tithi
• An opening orientation, one midpoint integration circle and a final live Amavasya ceremony
• Recordings available for participants in every time zone
• A complete downloadable workbook with lineage map, altar guide, mantras, materials checklist, tithi guide and journal pages

This format preserves the intimacy of a daily practice while allowing each participant to perform the water offering at the time appropriate for their own location and family tradition.

Your Simple Home Practice Kit

Participants will receive the full preparation guide before the journey begins. The basic kit may include:

• A clean copper, brass, steel or earthen vessel for water
• A second bowl or tray to receive the offering when practicing indoors
• Clean water
• Black sesame seeds
• Darbha or kusha grass, if available
• Unbroken rice
• A small lamp and oil or ghee
• Incense, if appropriate for your space
• White or light-coloured flowers
• Seasonal fruit or simple sattvic food
• A clean cloth for the altar
• A notebook or the course workbook
• Names and photographs of ancestors, if available; photographs are optional

No participant will be excluded because a traditional item is unavailable. The course will distinguish what is essential, what is customary and what can be adapted respectfully.

Who This Journey Is For

This immersion is suitable for you if:

• You feel called to honour your ancestors but do not know how to begin
• You want practical, step-by-step guidance for a simple home Tarpanam
• You already perform ancestral rites but want to understand their deeper architecture
• You live away from your family, temple, river or customary ritual support
• You do not know your ancestors’ names, gotra or death tithis
• Your family history contains migration, estrangement, adoption, secrecy, loss or interrupted tradition
• You want to meet lineage through gratitude and truth rather than fear or superstition
• You wish to become a more conscious ancestor for the generations that follow

Beginners are welcome. Experienced practitioners are welcome. You may participate quietly, and you will never be required to share private family history.

What You Will Receive

• 16 tithi teachings from Purnima through Amavasya
• Practical Tarpanam demonstrations
• Daily guided rituals and reflections
• Live integration and closing ceremonies
• Recordings for all guided sessions
• The River Behind You Workbook
• A printable ancestral altar guide
• Sanskrit mantras with transliteration and meaning
• A tithi-by-tithi Shraddha reference chart
• Guidance for unknown names, unknown tithis and incomplete family histories
• A final integration practice for carrying blessings forward without carrying burdens

Important Questions

Do I need to know the names or gotra of my ancestors?

No. Known names may be used, but the practice will also include respectful language for unknown, forgotten and unnamed ancestors of both lineages.

What if I do not know the death tithi?

Sarva Pitru Amavasya is traditionally used for ancestors whose tithi is unknown, forgotten or could not be observed. The course will also explain how a death tithi is determined.

Can I participate if one or both parents are living?

Yes. Some traditions restrict formal Pitru Tarpanam for a person whose father is living. Where such a restriction applies, an alternative gratitude and lineage-honouring practice will be provided. Family and sampradaya guidance should be respected.

Can women participate?

Yes. This immersion welcomes women and men. Eligibility rules for particular formal Shraddha procedures differ across families, regions and textual traditions; the course will explain the distinction between formal rites and accessible remembrance practices without dismissing anyone’s family dharma.

Is this a replacement for formal Shraddha or a priest?

No. It is an educational and guided spiritual immersion. Formal annual Shraddha, first-year rites and family-specific procedures should be performed according to the guidance of a qualified family priest or lineage holder where applicable.

Must I perform every ritual?

No. You may participate through listening, prayer, journaling, mantra, food donation or simple water offering according to your capacity. Sincerity is more important than performance.

What if my relationship with my ancestors was painful?

Honouring ancestry does not require denying harm, excusing abuse or pretending that every inheritance was benevolent. You may acknowledge the fact of life received while maintaining clear emotional and spiritual boundaries.

A Different Way to Meet the Lineage

You are not asked to carry every story forward.

You are asked to know that there was a story before yours.

You are not asked to worship suffering.

You are asked to recognise the life that survived it.

You are not asked to solve the dead.

You are asked to become conscious among the living.

At the end of these sixteen tithis, the intention is not to remain turned toward the past. It is to stand more fully in the present—rooted, grateful, discerning and available to the future.

The river behind you is not meant to drown you.

It is meant to remind you that you did not arrive alone.

Join the Journey

PITRU PAKSHA: THE RIVER BEHIND YOU
A 16-Tithi Journey of Tarpanam, Remembrance & Ancestral Reconciliation

September 26–October 10, 2026
Online · Accessible Worldwide · Recordings Included

Come with names if you know them.
Come without names if they have been lost.
Come with gratitude.
Come with questions.
Come as the living meeting the lives through which you arrived.