Tarpan or pind daan: which one does your family need?
Families ask which of the two rites to keep for their dead. Tarpan is the water offering. Pind daan is the fuller rite, the tarpan and then the pinda offered for each ancestor named. This page says what each one is, which occasions each is kept for, and what does not change between them.
Table of contents
Practice varies
Families and regions keep the rite in different ways. Where a family's elders or its own priest have said which rite to keep, that is the one to keep. Tell the priest, and he performs it.
Section I
What is tarpan, and what is pind daan?
The water offering, and the fuller rite. तर्पण tarpan is the offering of water to the ancestors. तिल til is black sesame seed. Water with til in it is poured from the hands, facing south, in the names of the departed. The family’s names are spoken aloud with the water offering, and so is the family’s गोत्र gotra, the family line passed down from father to son. They are spoken at the घाट ghat, the flight of stone steps leading down into a river.
A पिण्ड pinda is a ball of cooked rice, pressed by hand and offered to one named ancestor. पिण्डदान pind daan is the offering of pinda to the named ancestors. It is the full rite: the tarpan, then the pind daan, for each ancestor named. A तीर्थ tirtha is a place of pilgrimage, and in the oldest sense a crossing place on a river. At a river tirtha the pinda are given to the water when the offering is done.
Both open with the सङ्कल्प sankalp, the declaration in which the priest states out loud who is making the offering, for whom, where, and on what day. The यजमान yajaman is the person in whose name the rite is made, and his name, the family’s gotra and the names of the departed are spoken in it. Tarpan can be performed on its own, and pind daan is performed with tarpan. Together they are the main parts of a श्राद्ध shraddh, the rite performed for one’s departed ancestors.
Section II
Which one should a family choose?
Tarpan for a regular remembrance, and pind daan for the annual duty and the big occasions.
Tarpan is the choice for a regular remembrance. अमावस्या amavasya is the new moon, and by custom it is a day for the ancestral rites through the year. A family visiting a tirtha can offer tarpan there for its dead. A family that wants something simple, with the names and the gotra spoken and the water poured, chooses tarpan.
Pind daan is the choice for the annual duty. By custom the annual shraddh is kept on the तिथि tithi of the death, the day of the lunar calendar it fell on, in the lunar month it fell in. It is also the choice for the big occasions. पितृ पक्ष pitru paksha is the fortnight of the year kept for the ancestors, in September or October. सर्वपितृ अमावस्या Sarva Pitru Amavasya is the amavasya that closes it, kept by custom for all the ancestors of a family together, including those whose tithi is not known. The Kumbh at Nashik is the third. For these, choose the full rite, with a pinda for each ancestor named.
Where a family’s elders or its own priest have said which rite to keep, follow them. Practice differs between families and between regions, and what a family keeps is what the priest follows.
Section III
What stays the same whichever you choose?
The priest, the place, the names and the video. Whichever rite is chosen, a qualified priest performs it at Ramkund, on the Godavari at Nashik. The sankalp is spoken in the family’s name either way, naming the yajaman, the family’s gotra and each of the departed, with how each was related. The offering is then made in those names.
The sitting is filmed, and the video reaches the family within 72 hours of the sitting, on WhatsApp or by email. What differs between the two is the offering itself: water alone, or water and then the pinda.
Section IV
Explore more guides
Tarpan for the ancestors
The water offering itself, what is in the water, the part of the hand it is poured over, and what is spoken as it falls.
What is pind daan?
The offering of pinda within a shraddh, what a pinda is made of, what goes with it, and where the offering is made.
What is shraddh?
The whole rite the two offerings belong to, who it is for, when it falls, and its order as the Garuda Purana gives it.
Pitru Paksha
The fortnight of the year kept for the ancestors, when it falls, which day a family keeps, and the amavasya that closes it.
Section V