Shradh is normally tied to a tithi. You remember someone on the tithi they died on, and that tithi comes back once a year in the dark fortnight of Bhadarvo. It is a precise system, and it assumes you know the date. Very often nobody does. A great-grandfather who died before anyone wrote it down, a relative whose family scattered, an elder remembered warmly and vaguely. The system leaves them out.
Sarva Pitru Amavasya is the answer to that. Sarva means all. On the Amavasya that closes the fortnight, the tithi rule is set aside and one shradh covers everyone: the ancestors whose date you never knew, the tithi you missed because you were travelling or ill, a tithi that did not fall this year at all. The Garuda Purana is explicit that if you do not know the day someone died, or could not keep their tithi, this Amavasya is the day to do it.
It reaches further than your own family. The day is also kept for the dead nobody is left to remember: those whose line ended, whose people are gone, for whom no one anywhere will offer water this year. That is the quiet weight of the word sarva. You sit down for your own, and while you are there you make the offering wide enough to include people you never met and never could have.
The shradh fortnight opens the day after Bhadarvi Poonam, on 27 September 2026, and closes on this Amavasya, 10 October. For a full fortnight there are no weddings, no housewarmings, no new ventures. Gujarat has just come off Ganesh Visarjan and the Ambaji mela, and Sharad Navratri starts on 11 October, the very next day. So this quiet stretch is deliberately placed: the year stops being loud, turns to the people it came from, and only then picks the garba up again. The Amavasya is the hinge. It is the last day of looking back.
Gaya in Bihar is where India goes to offer pind for its fathers and forefathers. Gujarat holds the other half of that. At Siddhpur in Patan district, on the bank of the Saraswati, shradh is performed specifically for mothers, and it is the one place in the country known for it. The town was called Sristhal. Its Bindu Sarovar is counted among the five Panch-Sarovar alongside Mansarovar and Pushkar. The story belongs to Kardama and Devahuti, whose son Kapila was born on that bank and taught his own mother until she reached what he was teaching, and to Parashuram, who offered pind daan there for his mother Renuka. Worth knowing before you plan a trip: Siddhpur's great season for matru shradh is Kartik rather than this fortnight. But if your shradh this Amavasya is for your mother, it is worth knowing that the place exists, and that it is an hour and a half from Ahmedabad.
In Bengal this Amavasya is Mahalaya, the morning the Devi is invoked and Durga Puja begins. It looks like the opposite of a shradh day and it is not a coincidence. The fortnight given to the dead ends, and the invitation to the Mother goes out on the same breath. Gujarat marks that turn one day later, when Ghatasthapana opens Navratri. Two regions, one calendar, the same instinct: finish with the ancestors properly, then light the lamp.
Sarva Pitru Amavasya 2026 falls on Saturday, 10 October. It is fixed by the tithi rather than the English calendar: it is always the Amavasya that closes the shradh fortnight, Bhadarva Vad Amas, which is why the date moves every year.
Then this is your day, and you have not done anything wrong. Shradh is normally kept on the tithi of death, but the Garuda Purana says that when the date is unknown, or the tithi could not be kept, the shradh belongs on this Amavasya. Sarva means all: one offering here covers every ancestor of your line, named and unnamed.
It runs from 27 September 2026, the day after Bhadarvi Poonam, to this Amavasya on 10 October. Sharad Navratri begins on 11 October, the very next day, so the fortnight sits between Gujarat's two loudest seasons on purpose.
Most of it is done at home, and that is enough. If you go somewhere, Siddhpur in Patan district is the one that matters: on the Saraswati, with the Bindu Sarovar, it is the place in India for a mother's shradh, the way Gaya is for fathers. Its own great season for that is Kartik rather than this fortnight, so expect a quiet town, not a crowd.
It is the same day. Bengal calls it Mahalaya and keeps it as the morning the Devi is invoked and Durga Puja opens. The shradh and the invocation sit on one tithi: the fortnight for the dead finishes, and the Mother is called in the same breath. Gujarat marks that turn a day later, at Ghatasthapana.
Custom hands it to the eldest son, and where there is no son, families have long had daughters do it. Practice varies from family to family and from priest to priest, so ask your own. What is not in dispute is that the offering should be made by someone rather than left undone because of who is available.
The middle part of the day, not dawn. The exact window shifts with your city and the year, so open the Panchang for 10 October 2026 for your own city rather than borrowing a time from somewhere else.