All poojas, one catalogue

The fifteenth tithi of the dark fortnight: the one day when the rite is offered for all ancestors whose exact date of death is unknown, or for whom no individual shradh was performed. The most-booked day of the year.

Rice, mixed with ghee, honey, til and barley, shaped by hand and offered on the banks of a sacred river, each ball named for an ancestor. The single rite most enjoined by scripture for the peace of the departed.

Performed when ancestors have been neglected for three generations or when a family suspects pitrudosh. Three separate pindas for three classes of preta, offered only at specific sites — most authentically at Trimbakeshwar.