Pitru Paksha 2026: Which Day Is Whose Shraddha, Tithi by Tithi (27 September to 10 October)

2026-08-25

Shraddha is offered on the tithi of death, not the English date. The complete Pitru Paksha 2026 table, 27 September to 10 October, with every tithi and its aparahna window, and the days set aside for Bharani, avidhava women, sanyasis and unnatural death.

Pitru Paksha 2026 runs from Sunday, 27 September to Saturday, 10 October — fourteen calendar days carrying fifteen tithis. Almost everyone who opens a panchang during that fortnight wants one thing from it: the day that belongs to their own family. The rule that fixes it is short; applying it to a printed calendar is where people go wrong.

Shraddha follows the tithi of death, not the English date

A person's shraddha is offered on the tithi on which they died — the lunar day — not on the anniversary of the Gregorian date.

If your father died on the Saptami of a Krishna paksha, his shraddha falls on the Saptami of Pitru Paksha every year, whichever English date that turns out to be. The two calendars drift by about eleven days a year, so the date on the death certificate and the shraddha day will almost never coincide. If you know only the date, look up its tithi in any panchang covering that year. If even the date is lost, the fortnight has a day built for exactly that, at the end of this page.

Tithis begin and end at arbitrary clock times, not at midnight or sunrise, so a day can open under one tithi and close under the next. Which of the two does it count as?

Why shraddha is decided by aparahna, not sunrise

Most panchang listings label a day by the tithi running at sunrise — the right convention for vrats and for ordinary calendar use.

Shraddha does not use it. The dharmashastra assigns the offering to aparahna kaal, the fourth of the five equal parts into which the daylight period is divided. The tithi running through aparahna is the shraddha tithi for that day, even when a different tithi held the sunrise.

In 2026 this is not academic: on 1, 2 and 3 October the sunrise tithi and the shraddha tithi are a full step apart. A sunrise calendar marks 3 October as Saptami; by the aparahna rule, 3 October is the Ashtami shraddha. Ashtami this year never touches a sunrise at all — it runs from 08:00 on 3 October to 05:52 on 4 October, ending some twenty-three minutes before the sun comes up — so a sunrise-based table appears to skip it. It has not been skipped. It is on Saturday, 3 October.

Pitru Paksha 2026: the full tithi table, 27 September to 10 October

Times are IST, computed for Delhi. Find your ancestor's tithi of death in the third column; the date beside it is your day.

The two tithis that share 30 September

Fifteen tithis have to fit into fourteen days, and 2026 resolves that on Wednesday, 30 September. Chaturthi runs until 14:55 and Panchami begins there. Aparahna that day is 13:22 to 15:44, so Chaturthi holds ninety-four minutes of it and Panchami the remaining forty-nine — and Panchami gets no other aparahna in the fortnight, because it is finished by 12:35 on 1 October.

Chaturthi shraddha and Panchami shraddha therefore both fall on 30 September. Two families with different tithis will be at the same ghat on the same afternoon, and neither is doing it wrong.

Bharani and Maha Bharani: Tuesday, 29 September

The Bharani shraddha of Pitru Paksha is usually called Chaturthi Bharani or Panchami Bharani, because Bharani nakshatra most often lands on one of those tithis. In 2026 it does not. Bharani runs from 09:03 on 29 September to 07:37 on 30 September, placing it right across the aparahna of the 29th — a Tritiya. By the 30th's aparahna, Krittika has taken over.

So Maha Bharani 2026 is Tuesday, 29 September, under Tritiya rather than Chaturthi or Panchami. A sunrise-based nakshatra column will still show Bharani against 30 September, since it is present at that morning's sunrise for another eighty-three minutes. Both readings are correct for what they measure; the shraddha question is settled by aparahna. It is a narrow observance, kept by a person whose father has died and offered to him; our Maha Bharani 2026 page covers it in full.

Bharani's presiding deity is Yama. That attribution is the whole of the reason the tradition gives for the nakshatra's weight here, and we are not going to invent a better one.

The days set aside for particular deaths

Avidhava Navami — Sunday, 4 October

Navami is kept for married women who died before their husbands — avidhava, not-widowed. It is offered by the husband, or in his absence by the sons. A woman who outlived her husband is not included; her shraddha goes on her own tithi.

Sanyasi Dwadashi — Wednesday, 7 October

Dwadashi is for those who died after taking sanyas, and in wider practice for anyone who had formally left household life. It is also called Yati Dwadashi. A sanyasi's rites already differ from a householder's, so families to whom this applies usually know.

Ghata or Ghayal Chaturdashi — Friday, 9 October

Chaturdashi is the day for unnatural death: accident, weapon, poison, snakebite, fire, suicide — anything sudden and violent, at any age.

Practice varies on the reverse case — an elder who simply died old on a Chaturdashi. Some families keep the tithi as normal; others move that shraddha to Amavasya so Chaturdashi stays reserved. Both are followed. Ask whoever conducts your family's rites, not a calendar.

Sarva Pitru Amavasya — Saturday, 10 October

The last day covers everything the other thirteen do not: ancestors whose tithi nobody remembers, ancestors whose day was missed, and in most households all the pitrs together, named and unnamed, in one offering.

If you have read this far and still cannot place a tithi, 10 October is your day and no further research is needed. Amavasya runs from 21:36 on 9 October to 21:20 on the 10th, with aparahna from 13:17 to 15:37. The rituals are set out on our Sarva Pitru Amavasya 2026 page.

26 September: Purnima Shraddha falls before the fortnight

Pitru Paksha proper begins on Pratipada, 27 September. But anyone whose ancestor died on a Purnima observes on Bhadrapada Purnima — Saturday, 26 September — a day before the fortnight opens, easily missed by anyone scanning only the 27 September to 10 October range. Purnima runs from 23:06 on 25 September to 22:18 on the 26th, and that day's aparahna is 13:24 to 15:48. We have written on Bhadrapada Purnima and Purnima Shraddha separately.

Sunrise differs by city, and aparahna moves with it

Every time above is Delhi. Aparahna is derived from local sunrise and sunset, so it shifts with longitude. The figures below are for 25 September, the furthest date our live multi-city feed reaches; the city-to-city gap barely changes over the fortnight.

That is one hour and three minutes between Kolkata and Ahmedabad. On most days it changes nothing, since the tithi runs clean across aparahna everywhere. It matters on boundary days. On 1 October, Panchami ends at 12:35 IST — nearly fifty minutes before Delhi's aparahna opens at 13:22, but Kolkata's window opened at 12:40 on 25 September and moves only slightly across the fortnight, which leaves a margin of minutes rather than an hour. A reader in Bengal or Bihar should check a local panchang for that one date.

What we can tell you, and what we cannot

We can tell you to the minute when each tithi begins and ends, and when aparahna falls. Those are calculations.

We cannot tell you your family's own practice — whether the eldest son alone offers or all the brothers do, whether a daughter may, whether your line keeps the Amavasya variation for natural Chaturdashi deaths. Those are settled by custom and region, not by the panchang, and differ widely. Where the shastra states a reason for a rule, we have given it. Where it states only the rule, we have said so and stopped.

For the fortnight's wider observances — what is done, what is avoided, how tarpan and pindadan are sequenced — see our complete Pitru Paksha 2026 guide.