Understanding the Vedic Celebration of Pitru Paksha

Honoring the Ancestors during this deeply sacred period from September 17 to October 2, 2024

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The Vedic tradition of Pitru (Pitri or Pitr) Paksha will be celebrated from September 17 through October 2 this year. This annual festival starts at the Full Moon in the Bhadrapada month which extends from September 3 to October 3. The Divine Mother celebration of Sharad Navratri will begin on the eve of October 3 at the New Moon when Pitru Paksha culminates.

Also known as Mahalaya Paksha and the “Fortnight of the Ancestors,” Pitru Paksha is a two-week period when the ancestors (pitrs or pitris) are honored and invoked through special offerings and ceremonies in the Vedic tradition. The ancestors include family, friends, teachers, and all members of society. Pitru Paksha is rooted in the Rig Veda and described in the Puranas of the Vedic tradition. It is believed that the souls of the ancestors visit the earthly realm during this time, and their blessings are sought for the well-being and prosperity of the living.

The Rishis of ancient Vedic culture charted the yearly calendar in observance of nature’s changing cycles. These highly evolved masters of the greatest mysteries of life and death understood that the early autumnal season of the year is a profoundly sacred period. During this time, the Earth’s electromagnetic energies in the northern hemisphere are beginning to shift and turn inward, just as our own sublime energetic systems are moving deeper within.

The Rishis recognized that revering and propitiating the ancestors during Pitru Paksha is necessary to maintain harmony within our own individual nature as well as for the whole world. This tradition remains very much alive today in modern Hindu culture.

During Pitru Paksha, offerings are given, and pujas and death rites (sraddha or tarpana) are performed on certain days according to specific rules. The last day of Pitru Paksha is considered to be the most important day for these rituals. This day is known as the Mahalaya Amavasya or Sarva Pitru Amavasya. It will span from around 5:10 PM UTC on October 1 until around 7:50 PM UTC on October 2. Check WorldTimeBuddy to convert these times to your own time zone if it is different.

The autumn season is the most natural time for contemplating death. Often in traditional Western culture, death is terribly dreaded and sanitized, though to a spiritual aspirant in any culture, death is not “the end,” but it is liberation. My own teacher Ram Dass likened death to taking off a tight shoe that you have worn well.

According to the Dalai Lama, “Awareness of death is the very bedrock of the path. Until you have developed this awareness, all other practices are obstructed.”

There are those who do not realize that one day we must all die. But those who do, settle their quarrels. — The Dhammapada (Verse 6)

In India's great tradition, Pitru Paksha is a time for honoring all our dearly departed ones, and I believe that it is also a time to go deeper and practice as the Dalai Lama has instructed.

Hail to those who have passed through the veil

From Life to Death, to Earth from Breath.

Hail to those who suffered to gift me with blood,

Hail to those who survived to gift me with body,

Hail to those whose songs gift me with inspiration.

Hail to those whom I knew and loved in life,

Whose memory I carry with me like a word of comfort,

Hail to those who left this land long ago,

Whose names I honor like a word of hope,

Or if I know not their names, whose lives I honor still.

I live and love because you lived and loved,

I speak and struggle because you spoke and struggled,

You live in me, as I will live in those who come after me.

Grant me the patience, O my beloved Dead,

To see the long view, and remember that what I do

Affects a million million souls I will never know. (Galina Krasskova, Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner: A Book of Prayer, Devotional Practice, and the Nine Worlds of Spirit)