Pind Daan
Every question on the site tagged Pind Daan, each answered from a timestamped source rather than a summary written from memory.
The offering of rice balls (Pind) to a deceased ancestor during Shradh, performed to nourish them and support their liberation.
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What happens to the subtle body during the ten days of Pinda Dana after death?
Per the Garuda Purana, a transitional Preta Sharira forms during the ten days of Pinda Dana performed by descendants, experiencing the fruits of past actions during the soul's journey toward Yama, until the Varshiki rites determine its future state.
What spiritual harm results from abandoning traditional Vedic Sanskaras?
Abandoning sacraments like the sacred thread (Yajnopavita), the tonsure ceremony (Chudakarana/Mundan), traditional cremation on a funeral pyre, and post-death Shradh and Pinda Daan causes spiritual disruption, Pitru Dosha, and material or physical afflictions.
Those who mock pitru karma while alive will find their own children giving them no pind
If you do not wake up now, he says, people like him who speak openly on such subjects have to hear abuse. Your children will not give you pind. While you are alive you cause uproar and say nothing happens after death; but open your eyes and see how pret and pishaach cause upheaval in a house. Only when the water goes over the head do you start acting — let us do Bhairav ji's puja, let us do something for the pitrs. And even then you show the pitrs so much favour that the whole anushthan goes in vain, saying ten times over that we left work and came, that Narayan Bali will have to be done all our lives, that Tripindi is a sham for looting.
Will the pitrs accept a pind offered in anger?
Do you think, he asks, that after speaking such foul words your pitrs will take the pind, that they will accept it? There, of all places, the bhava should be greatest. The body they gave, the wealth they gave, the vaibhav they gave — by their kripa your body runs, by their kripa your breath moves; the pitr are your first devatas, and you sit and abuse them and say your welfare is happening. If there is anger within you while making the pind and you make it in anger — would you eat food that someone made and gave you in anger?
What is it that actually goes with a person afterwards?
Rise above these subjects, he says. Even if you earn ten crore, it is this that will go afterwards — the pind that is being offered, the daan that is being made, the mala that is being told, the japa; and the listening to subjects endowed with shastra and nishtha, by which your mind becomes healthy and becomes devoted to your aradhya and you do seva puja.
Why should pinda not be offered directly in such a case?
Because if death has come by abhicharik vidya, the shakti that kills takes the departed along with it, and they remain under its control. If you begin giving pinda directly, or have Narayan bali or anything else done, then to a very great extent — depending on whether you have the capacity of tapo bala — the devatas of that abhicharik vidya, who took his life or who were present at the time, will not let them receive the pinda at all.
Up to how many generations of ancestors should be worshipped?
Three generations, or as many as you know. The scriptural limit is seven, because the birth of the eighth generation liberates the seventh — Gaya seats seven, while Tripindi Shraddha covers three: father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
A relative who died last year and is not yet joined to the ancestors may be named for recitations, though Pind is a separate matter
For recitation his name may be written; Pind Daan is a separate matter. There is no difficulty in including him in the Bhagavad Gita, Parvati Gita or Sahasranama recitations.
When should Gaya Shraddha be arranged, and is Pitru Paksha the recommended time?
Tripindi Shraddha can be done at any time with no difficulty. Gaya Shraadh is a vast undertaking: it requires the cooperation of every household descended from your grandfather's brothers, because seven generations are seated. Arrange it only when that much family is willing.
Gaya is never an individual remedy — it is done with the whole family, not to correct one relative who missed the funeral rites
Bear in mind that Gaya Shraadh does not work that way. It is performed with the entire family, not as a personal correction for one person who missed the rites.
What is the mahima of Kurukshetra for the pitrs?
The mahima of Kurukshetra is infinite, the speaker says, and the greatest mahima there is this: that if one performs tarpan there for the sake of ones pitrs, or does pind daan there, then they certainly attain swarga. Such is the vardan of Bhagavan there.
Can pind daan still be done eleven years after a death?
A listener says his father passed away eleven years ago and the pindan has not been done. It can absolutely be done, brother, the speaker answers: have it done at a tirtha kshetra. Go to a tirtha kshetra and have it done there.
Finishing the Shradh rites in three or five days has no scriptural basis
The speaker says that whoever completes the post-death rites (Dash Gatra, Ekadashi, Malin Shodashi and the rest) within three or five days, and whoever performs them for him from whatever sect or community, is only writing that family's downfall. He says there is no Vedic, scriptural or Puranic rule anywhere that lets all the Shradh rites be finished in five days so that the family is freed from Sutak. People do it for business or service reasons, he says, and however rich they are it does not take long for their intellect to be corrupted and for them to end up on the road. He adds, sarcastically, that if they only believe in three or five days they might as well cremate the body, bathe the next day and skip the fake Pind Daan entirely.
Monthly Pind Daan in the year before Varshiki: donations are no substitute if a priest is available
The speaker addresses the family that has not done the Varshiki after the thirteenth day and has taken up the rule of monthly Shradh and Pind Daan on the death tithi, but wants to replace the pind daan with a donation to Brahmins or someone else in the deceased's name. He says that can be accepted only if no suitable person is available or there is genuinely no time. If one is anywhere in India where a learned person able to perform the shradh exists, one should take out one day a month for those who gave this body. He adds that being away for a job or business is no excuse: find someone nearby, since people there die too and have their shradh done, and do it there.
Does worshipping deities cause trouble to the ancestors?
No. Trouble goes to the Pishachas who are not present in the ancestral line — and if a presence is not in the Pitru Kul then it is not your ancestor at all. The Pitrus are troubled only where an Abhichara thing is present and holds them in bondage.
On Chaitra Shukla Ashtami all tirthas and devatas bathe in the Brahmaputra, and pind daan with that water or Kamakhya's water gives the pitr the akshaya lok
The Mahabhagavat has this subject too: that in the month of Chaitra, on the tithi of Shukla Ashtami, all the tirthas and all the devatas bathe according to the vidhi in the waters of the Brahmaputra river, the Brahmaputra Nad, and with a feeling of bhakti come into the kshetra of Bhagavati Kamakhya. If a human being bathes at that time and takes darshan of Bhagavati, then by her kripa, through their archan and pujan, release from the bandhan of existence certainly takes place. And if water obtained from the Brahmaputra Nad, or from the chief pitha of Bhagavati where the water issues, is used in the pind for pind daan for the forebears, then the pitr attain the akshaya lok — that is, they do not decay again and there is no further birth.
Narayana bali, Tripindi and pindikaran are performed for one who died an untimely death
In tantra, he says, it is those who die who become bhoot and pret. For this person who has attained death, on account of the untimely death you had Narayana Bali done, had Tripindi Shraddha done, had japa and pindikaran and the rest done — so that he should go into the pitr kula according to his prarabdha; and wherever you went, to whatever tirtha dham, when you have that process performed there, he comes and stands in the pitr kula, though he will not go into the deva kula.
The listener has not done his own pindadan, nor his pitrs', nor entered vanaprastha
You have not yet performed your own Pind Daan, he says, nor given the pind of your pitrs; you have not entered vanaprastha; you have not renounced everything. You are still new and young, your marriage is still to happen — and you are saying that touching a pig will bring you sadgati. What is your standing, he asks; before you an upadesh of that level should never be given at all.
Why is Muhurta observed at all?
Because there is a system, and the deities have their own timings. There is a Muhurta for buying land, for worshipping it, for the foundation, and for Griha Pravesh — because divine powers go with you into the house and are satisfied with Havishya at the appointed time; go at the wrong time and there is trouble.
What should be done if a dead person troubles you?
Do the path of the Tantrokta Bajrang Baan five times daily at night by the ordinary vidhan, lighting a lamp of mustard oil, he answers. And why is the dead person troubling? Somewhere his sadgati has not taken place. For that you should do the path of the eleventh adhyaya of the Bhagavad Gita, and if by vidhi-vidhan you also perform his pind daan it will be the very best. Get his gati done, he says.
How are the kula shaktis of two brothers separated?
If she says she will remain on both sides but you may separate, then, the speaker says, it is done as the reverse of a marriage: at a wedding the kriyas join two families, with the milan of pitrs and of the devi-devatas and kuldevi-devatas. Here two pinds are made, as the pret pind and the pitr pind are joined, and in the field of tantra the link is cut and separated.
What about the fear of Varna-sankar after an inter-caste marriage?
Study the ninth chapter of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita once, thoroughly — what Bhagavan Shri Hari Krishna says on this subject, what he has said regarding Varna-sankarata. The doubt of your heart will be removed and you will then be able to take the right decision.
Seven pinds are made in the shamshaan area, and the prayaschitta follows
After making it, if they are to be renounced, seven pinds will be made there. In that region's shamshaan area — the things being shamshanic — through that same janeu they will renounce each thing one by one. After the renunciation of the kusha janeu, a prayaschitta vidhan and the like is done, and the ordinary janeu of raw cotton thread is worn once again.
For giving, five villages are left behind and the kriya done in the sixth
For giving it is said that one leaves five villages and goes into the sixth village, and it is done there. Having performed the kriya there, the whole of it is renounced upon the one to whom it is to be given, through these same seven pinds; and the disciple there will then wear what has been taken off.
Self-absorption in the garb of a sant produces ashastriya speech that harms ordinary householders.
He says this becomes excess. When you assume the garb of a sant and crores of people begin to ask after you, a person falls into self-absorption and utters many kinds of ashastriya words, from which the harm is only to ordinary householders. He points to videos saying — what will come of feeding laddus in someone's name after he has died, what will come of the thirteen days of mourning and weeping, do nam jap instead and his sadgati will happen. It would have been proper, he says, to say that the divinity is obtained when nam jap goes on alongside the feeding of laddus; but to forbid it outright is improper.
Should a lamp be lit before an ancestor's photograph?
If there is no rule about it from before, the speaker asks, then why are you burning so much of a lamp — if you burn a lamp their atma will never be able to go. Lighting a lamp before ancestors is not found anywhere: it is only when the das gatra and the rest take place, of ten days, that it happened — and a photograph, a chhaya chitra, did not even exist in that manner before. Only that it burned, that yes, for eleven days the state of the atma is there; and after the das gatra was done, his own journey began. For Vaikuntha, or for what we call the bhavsagar, the Vaitarani and the rest, his journey would begin, and it was a journey of a full year.
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