Ancestor Photos in the Puja Room: How It Invites Pitru Dosha

The speaker opens with the question of whether photos of the dead and of the ancestors of one's own house can be placed at the home's worship spot and worshipped there. He says this is a subject everyone must know. He describes how people now build a beautiful separate puja room, and there, alongside the gods, put up the photo of some dead member of the house — often because their attachment to that person was very strong, or because the person died an untimely death. Setting aside the tantric exception, he says that ordinarily those who have no knowledge and who worship the photo of their Pitr, their forefathers, their dead, together with the gods, create a cause of very great destruction. Somewhere in the house a great pitru dosha forms, and a deva dosha forms too; a deva shraap is received, and a pitru shraap is received. The rest of the talk, he says, explains how this happens.

The speaker says one side of the question belongs to tantra. If someone who died an untimely death has been seated in the house by a sadhak or a tantric, done with that person's knowledge, and the family has since been worshipping them there together with the gods, then that can be their own personal matter; they may do it. He does not describe how such a seating is done or what it involves. He only marks it off from the common situation, where people with no knowledge at all place the photo among the gods out of feeling, which is the case he warns against.

To explain why ancestor photos do not belong in the puja room, the speaker first states where the gods belong. He says everyone knows that if a house is run by vastu, the ishan corner, the angle between east and north, is held to be the place of the gods. The deities dwell there; it is called deva-bhumi and is regarded as deva-sthan. At that place, he says, one should always establish the deva shaktis connected with one's own kul. One should decorate the spot with the sacred image and the photos of one's ishta and aradhya, and do worship there daily with dhoop, deep, gandha, akshat and the like. That place, he says, is always shubhra, pure.

After placing the gods in the ishan corner, the speaker turns to what the ancestors are. He says the pitr come in the category of upadeva. They are not of only one type; the types of ancestors are described in many different ways. Among them are also ancestors whose gati, their onward passage, has not happened, and who are connected with the pret yoni. If you seat those very ancestors in your place of worship, he says, then the mantras with which you are worshipping the gods will begin to cause your ancestors pain. He gives the example of Hanuman Chalisa and Bajrang Baan: because the jurisdiction there is wrong in the first place, when the Bajrang Baan is recited, the energy that arises from it will hurt the body of the ancestors. This, he says, is the first point.

The speaker asks where the ancestors' place is held to be, and answers with three places. The first is the main door of the house: their official place is on the chaukhat, the doorframe. He stresses it is in the chaukhat, not in the trikut; today, he says, people are building a trikut instead, but the place of the kul's ancestors is held to be the chaukhat. The second is Tulsi ji. In Tulsi, he says, the different kinds of ancestors have their subtle portion in different places. When we give water to Tulsi ji, and when we give water to Surya Narayan, the ancestors receive their share through them too and are satisfied. This, he says, is official. The third place is at the sacred feet of the house's ishta and aradhya, or the kul's deity, whose principal image one has installed in the place of worship. But this is held to be symbolic, subtle. Which ancestors are there and in what form, he says, depends on the deity of one's kul. He then warns that this in no way means you may put the photos and so on of your dead right beside the feet of your ishta. That cannot be done; if you do it, it will create dosha.

Besides the doorframe, Tulsi and the deity's feet, the speaker names a place in the kitchen. He first separates the dining place from the kitchen itself: the room where you cook is held to be in the agneya corner. Within that kitchen, wherever you have made the place for keeping water, whether in what counts as the ishan corner of that room, or its nairutya corner, or towards the west of the kitchen, that drinking-water place is held to be under the authority of the forefathers, the ancestors; they are present there. Therefore, he says, in old regions, or among village people who still follow the old beliefs, a lamp is certainly lit at the drinking-water spot every evening. The ancestors receive grace from it. At the same spot, he says, Bhagavati Nairutya Lakshmi is also seated.

Right after saying that Nairutya Lakshmi is seated at the kitchen drinking-water spot, the speaker takes a swipe at a common gap in practice. Those who worship Asuri Lakshmi and Asuri Durga, he says, have no idea where their worship should in fact be started, from which place the lamp will be lit and go onward. He insists this is not a made-up claim; it is a written matter that he is passing on. If you want to search that far, he says, look where Asuri Durga, Deepan Durga or Asuri Lakshmi are given: there you will find the discussion of the place from which you must light the lamp for them, carry it and set it at your place of worship, and worship. Why that is done, he says, is also described in full detail in the tantra texts. He ends the aside with "so that is the place of the ancestors", returning to the drinking-water spot, and moves on without stating the procedure himself.

Having listed the ancestors' seats, the speaker gives the place for their photos. He says the ordinary place held for them in a house is not the south direction as such. It is the south-west corner, the nairutya corner, or the stretch of the south adjoining the nairutya corner. Generally, he says, we say the south direction is for the ancestors because it is the door of Yama; Yamaraj is the lord of that direction and the ancestors are under Yamaraj, so we say "towards the south". That too, he says, is correct, proper and shastric. So, he says, you should put the photo towards the south wall, or towards the nairutya direction fixed to the west: the ancestors' photo should go hugging the south-west corner, or on the south wall, and that is where they should be given their place. In the place of worship in the house, never.

The speaker explains what happens when the ancestor is put in the puja room anyway. If you give them a place there, he says, then at some time, when your punya is exhausted, the trouble comes. Today you are worshipping; you can worship in your own made-up way, burn dhoop and deep for them there, light a big lamp for them daily, offer bhog daily. That is your bhav, your feeling. Worshipping out of feeling may be proper in its own place. But in the course of time it will give trouble, because somewhere the ancestor is being pained. Their form, he says, has now become different. They will not move according to your rules; they have to move according to the rule that has been made for them, and whatever pain or pleasure is due to them is happening to them by that rule. You go on believing, out of feeling, that they are seated here and we will worship them along with the gods: "it is my father, my father is God, so we will worship him as God." That, he says, is a bhav. But look at the reality: by giving them a place in that spot you are only causing them pain.

Having explained the harm, the speaker gives the right way. Seat the ancestors at the place that is properly theirs, in the direction and spot where they should be given room. Then, before them, light dhoop and deep, offer flowers, offer bhog, or recite Shrimad Bhagavad Gita as far as your strength allows. From that, he says, they will certainly be satisfied and will also give their blessings in the right way. If in truth their gati has not happened and they are still there, they will never let any trouble come in future. And if their gati has already happened, that punya will still certainly reach you. Therefore, he says, one should never do such seva and puja in the wrong place in the wrong way; that only increases one's troubles. He closes with the hope that everyone will give their ancestors, forefathers and dead their proper place and receive their grace.