India Today ·
Ode to the dead: Why Gaya fills up every Pitripaksha season
The Bihar government has joined in to facilitate the age-old remembrance ritual through special pilgrimage packages and e-Pinddaan
Every autumn, Gaya in Bihar becomes a city of the living praying for the dead. For a fortnight, families arrive with names, photographs, a little rice and a great deal of unfinished love. They come to perform pind daan for parents, grandparents and ancestors—a ritual through which the dead are remembered, fed and, in the religious imagination, helped towards release.
This is Pitripaksha, the annual fortnight devoted to ancestors. In 2026, the main pilgrimage season is being observed from September 25 to October 10 when this historic pilgrimage town would swell with people carrying the departed ones in their minds.
