What is pind daan?
Pind daan is the offering of pinda, balls of cooked rice, to named ancestors. It is one part of a shraddh, and this page describes that part, what goes into it and where it is performed.
पिण्डदानpind daan
the offering of pinda to the departed
Table of contents
Section I
What is a pinda?
A पिण्ड pinda is a ball of cooked rice, pressed by hand and offered to one named ancestor. The pinda is the ball. Pind daan is the rite of offering it. The two words are not the same thing.
Rice, तिल til, the black sesame seed, and ghee go into it. The Garuda Purana has boiled rice soaked with ghee offered to the ancestors, and rice mixed with til offered facing south. In some families the pinda are made of flour rather than rice, and the priest says which is used where he performs.
Section II
What is offered along with it?
Darbha, water and til. The pinda are set down on दर्भ darbha, the stiff grass also called kusha, which the priest also wears as a ring on his finger and holds while water is poured. Water is poured as तर्पण tarpan, the offering of water mixed with til, poured from the hands in the names of the departed. Tarpan can be performed on its own, and pind daan is performed with it.
The offerer faces south. The Garuda Purana has the rice offered, facing south, to the grandfather and the great-grandfather, in the father’s line and in the mother’s line both. A pinda is offered for each ancestor named.
Section III
Where is pind daan performed?
At home, as part of a श्राद्ध shraddh, the whole rite for the ancestors, and at a tirtha. Within a shraddh the pinda offering follows the invocation of the ancestors, and the shraddh page carries the order of the rite as the Garuda Purana gives it.
A तीर्थ tirtha is a place of pilgrimage, and in the oldest sense a crossing place on a river. A rite performed at a tirtha is held to carry more weight than the same rite at home, which is why families travel for it. At a river tirtha the pinda are given to the water when the offering is done. Ramkund at Nashik is a tirtha for the ancestral rites, and pind daan is performed there.
Section IV
Explore more guides
What is shraddh?
The whole rite the pinda offering belongs to, who it is for, when it falls, and its order as the Garuda Purana gives it.
Tarpan for the ancestors
The offering of water that pind daan is performed with, what is in the water, and the part of the hand it is poured over.
What the rite needs
The rice, the til, the darbha and the water the offering is made with, what each is for, and who lays them out.
Glossary of the ancestral rites
Pinda, til, darbha, tarpan and the other words of the offering, each in Devanagari with a plain meaning.
Section V