Pitru Paksha, the "fortnight of the fathers", is a period of about sixteen days in the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada into Ashvina (September-October) set aside for honouring the ancestors (pitrs) and performing the rites for the dead. It is not a festival of rejoicing but a solemn season of obligation, in which the living discharge their debt to the departed by offering them nourishment. The central rite is shraddha, in which offerings of rice-balls (pinda) and water (tarpana), together with the feeding of Brahmins, crows and the poor, are made to sustain the ancestors and ensure their peace; each family observes the rite on the lunar day matching the death of the departed, and the whole period is considered inauspicious for beginning new ventures, weddings or purchases.
The season expresses one of the oldest structures of Hindu religion, the idea of the "three debts", including the debt to the ancestors, and the belief that the dead depend on the ritual care of their descendants, particularly the son. The pilgrimage town of Gaya in Bihar is the pre-eminent place for the rites, drawing large numbers who perform shraddha there for the release of their forebears. Coming immediately before the autumn Navaratri, the fortnight of the ancestors ends as the festive worship of the Goddess begins, the year turning from the care of the dead to the celebration of the divine.