Pitru Paksha 2026 Tarpan Vidhi: How to Offer Jal and Til, and the Right Time (27 September - 10 October)

2026-08-25

Pitru Paksha 2026 begins 27 September and ends 10 October. What tarpan actually is, the three types and their directions, where the janeu sits, why the water is poured between thumb and index finger, and the aparahna window for Delhi and eight cities.

Pitru Paksha 2026 begins on Sunday, 27 September and closes with Sarva Pitru Amavasya on Saturday, 10 October — fourteen calendar days, not the sixteen most people expect. The reason is worth stating at the top: Krishna Ashtami this year runs from 08:00 on 3 October to 05:52 on 4 October, so it never touches a sunrise and never gets a calendar day of its own. The tithis are all there; the days are fewer.

What most households actually perform in that fortnight is not a full shraddha. It is tarpan — the offering of water. This page is only about that: the three kinds, which way to face, where the janeu sits, what goes into the water, which part of the hand it is poured from, and the rule that fixes the hour. All times below are for Delhi; sunrise differs by city, and so does every window derived from it.

Tarpan, shraddha and pind daan are three different things

They get used interchangeably and they are not interchangeable.

• Tarpan is the offering of water from the cupped hand to devas, rishis and ancestors. It can be done alone, at home, in a few minutes, and many families do it daily through the year.
• Shraddha is the full rite for a named ancestor on a specific tithi — sankalp, invitation, feeding of brahmanas. Tarpan is one limb of it.
• Pind daan is the offering of pindas, balls of rice or barley flour — a separate act, not required for tarpan to be complete.

The three tarpans: deva, rishi, pitru

Tarpan follows a fixed order, and each of the three has its own direction, janeu position and part of the hand. The order is not reversed.

1. Deva tarpan — to the gods. Face east. Janeu in its normal position over the left shoulder (savya, upavita). Water is poured off the fingertips, the deva tirtha.
2. Rishi tarpan — to the sages. Face north. Janeu worn as a garland, hanging evenly in front (nivita). Water is poured across the base of the fingers, the rishi or kaya tirtha.
3. Pitru tarpan — to the ancestors. Face south. Janeu shifted to the right shoulder (apasavya, prachinaviti). Water is poured through the gap between the thumb and the index finger, the pitru tirtha.

The usual count is one anjali of water for each deva, two for each rishi, three for each ancestor named. One honest caveat on the rishi step: some traditions keep the janeu in the normal savya position there and shift it only for the pitru portion. Both are followed — ask which your family uses, then keep to it.

Why the pitru tirtha is between the thumb and the index finger

The hand is divided into four tirthas, and this is not folk practice — it is fixed in Manusmriti 2.59. The base of the thumb on the palm side is the brahma tirtha; the root of the fingers is the kaya or prajapatya tirtha; the fingertips are the deva tirtha; and below those two, in the web between thumb and index finger, is the pitru tirtha.

The verse assigns the positions. It does not say why. There is no shortage of modern explanation about nerve points and energy flow, but none of it is in the text and we will not pretend otherwise. The shastra gives a precisely located instruction, followed as such.

In practice: palm down and tilted slightly toward you, thumb held away from the fingers to open the channel, the water running out over that web and falling to the south.

What goes into the water: til, jau, kush

• Kush (darbha) grass — held in the hand throughout, and worn as a pavitri ring on the right ring finger. Kush is prescribed for all pitru karma; the sutras require it rather than argue for it.
• Black til (sesame) — for the pitru tarpan only. The Puranas call til dear to the ancestors and give an origin story for it; they do not give a mechanism.
• Jau (barley) and akshat — used in the deva portion in many traditions, plain water in others.
• The water should be clean and cool. Milk, white flowers or gangajal are added in some families — regional additions, not universal requirements.

A copper or bronze vessel is preferred; steel is widely used and does not invalidate the offering.

Aparahna: the timing rule, and how it is actually calculated

Shraddha and tarpan belong to the aparahna, and aparahna is not a vague afternoon. Take the interval from sunrise to sunset, cut it into five equal parts, and the fourth part is aparahna — equivalently, muhurtas ten to twelve in the fifteen-muhurta reckoning.

Two named windows sit just before it, used for the opening steps. Kutup muhurta is the eighth muhurta — the same slot your panchang lists as Abhijit — and Rauhina muhurta is the ninth. The main offering then runs through aparahna proper.

The classical justification is that the day is apportioned, the earlier part to the devas and the later to the pitrs, and aparahna is the ancestors' share. That is a scriptural assignment rather than an observation about the world, and it is fair to say so.

Delhi: kutup and aparahna, day by day

All times IST, computed from Delhi sunrise and sunset. Which shraddha tithi falls on which date is a separate question, worked through in the full Pitru Paksha 2026 dates guide.

Your city is not Delhi, and the gap is large

Because aparahna is derived entirely from sunrise and sunset, it moves with longitude. Kolkata's window opens about forty-five minutes before Delhi's, Ahmedabad's about nineteen minutes after.

These are measured for 25 September 2026, two days before the fortnight opens — the last date our city-level engine covers at the time of writing. The offsets between cities hold through the fortnight; each city's own window then drifts a few minutes earlier as the days shorten, exactly as Delhi's does above. Read the gap the honest way: a Delhi table used in Kolkata is three-quarters of an hour late, and the tail of Delhi's window falls after Kolkata's aparahna has already closed. For your date and city, use the daily panchang.

Where it may be done: river, ghat, or the terrace at home

A flowing river or tirtha is the preferred setting — Gaya, Prayag, Haridwar, Pushkar, Kurukshetra, Brahma Kapal at Badrinath, Trimbakeshwar, Rameswaram all carry their own weight for pitru karma. Standing knee-deep facing south is the usual form there.

At home the rite is not reduced. Sit facing south on kush or wool, on a clean terrace, courtyard or corner of the puja room, and pour into a wide thali or copper tray in front of you — not a sink, not a drain. Afterwards pour the collected water at the root of a peepal, a tulsi, or any tree in earth.

Who may offer, and where the vidhi honestly differs

The eldest son is the traditional offerer, with brothers, grandsons and the son's line following in order. Failing a son, texts and living practice both allow the wife, the daughter, the daughter's son and other relatives; many families today have daughters offer tarpan, with scriptural footing for it.

If your parents are living you may still do deva and rishi tarpan; the pitru portion is for ancestors who have passed. If you know no names beyond a generation or two, offer to those you know and close with a general offering — Sarva Pitru Amavasya on 10 October exists for ancestors whose tithi is unknown or missed.

And the plain truth about vidhi: it varies by region, sampradaya and family. The directions, the janeu positions, the tirthas of the hand and the aparahna rule are the stable core across nearly all of them. The number of anjalis, the mantras, jau versus akshat, nivita for the rishi step — these differ, and no variant is a mistake. Learn your own family's form. If the worry underneath is pitru dosha in the chart, that is a separate subject, covered in our guide to pitru dosha, not something fixed by adding steps to your tarpan.