PITRU PAKSHA: SIXTEEN DAYS WHEN INDIA FEEDS ITS ANCESTORS, CALLING THEM BY NAME!
It is India's “festival of the dead” — but the word festival must be handled with respect: Pitru Paksha is first and foremost a ritual fortnight of the Hindu calendar, when families feed their ancestors, naming them. And in Gaya, in Bihar, it becomes one of the country's greatest gatherings: the Pitru Paksha Mela, a pilgrimage organized under the Bihar Tourism Department, which counted 37.5 lakh visitors in 2026. Festival TV takes you — respectfully — into the heart of this fortnight like no other.
Let us say it clearly from the start: Pitru Paksha is not an entertainment festival. No stage, no lineup, no tickets — an age-old religious observance written into the Hindu calendar, which international compilations such as Babbel present as India's “festival of the dead”, in the same world family as Mexico's Día de los Muertos or the Celtic Samhain. The Times of India calls it “India's Fortnight for the Ancestors”. Sixteen lunar days, in September–October, during which the living care for their dead — calling them by name.
The heart of the fortnight lies in three gestures. Shraddha: offerings of food made on the lunar anniversary day of the ancestor's death. Tarpan: water mixed with black sesame, barley and kusha grass, offered facing south. And Pind Daan: balls of rice — the pinda — meant to nourish the departed soul and open its path to liberation, moksha. Around them, charity in the name of the departed: meals served to Brahmins, to cows, to dogs and above all to crows, held to be the ancestors' messengers — if a crow eats the offering, the ancestors have accepted it. A time of quiet devotion, then: no celebrations or major purchases during these sixteen days.
And then there is Gaya. On the banks of the Falgu river, in Bihar, the Vishnupad temple and dozens of sacred sites — Sita Kund, Pretshila, Akshaywat — make the city the ritual capital of the fortnight: tradition holds that a single Pind Daan there liberates the entire ancestral lineage. The rites are led by the Gayawal Pandits, Gaya's hereditary priests. There, Pitru Paksha takes the form of a true organized public event: the Pitru Paksha Mela, a pilgrimage fair overseen by the Bihar Tourism Department and the district administration, with a 2,500-bed tent city in 2026, official packages — including a remote e-Pind Daan — and a pilgrim helpline, through the BSTDC, the state tourism development corporation.
The scale is dizzying: for the 2026 edition, held from September 26 to October 10, the Bihar Tourism Department counted 37.5 lakh visitors — more than 3.7 million — a record reported by Patna Press, which notes that this count most likely covers all of the season's visitors to Gaya; foreign pilgrims were reported there, notably from Russia, France, Germany and Brazil. Behind these crowds stand founding stories: the Garuda Purana codifies the Shraddha rites, the Mahabharata tells of Karna's return to earth, sent back to feed his ancestors — and the Ramayana sets Rama's own Shraddha for his father Dasharatha in Gaya itself.
The next fortnight will open in mid-September 2027 and will be closed by Sarva Pitru Amavasya — Mahalaya's day — around 29 September 2027: dates to be confirmed, because the calendars still diverge by one day. An appointment of memory, gratitude and transmission — exactly the kind of celebration that reminds us why Festival TV exists: show how each community honors life... and those who lived it before us.
Practical information
Pitru Paksha — the ancestors' fortnight (Hindu observance, across India); public form: the Pitru Paksha Mela of Gaya (Bihar), Vishnupad temple and banks of the Falgu.
Next occurrence: mid-September 2027 — closing (Sarva Pitru Amavasya / Mahalaya) around September 29, 2027, dates to be confirmed (calendars differ by one day).
No tickets — a religious ritual period. Official services for Mela pilgrims: BSTDC — https://bstdc.bihar.gov.in/
— Moïse 1er, the Festival Explorer