Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 12

Look at what a man carries to a riverbank in Pitru Paksha. A small copper vessel of water. A pinch of black sesame seeds. A few blades of green grass. And sometimes, a handful of barley. Nothing else.

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Source note. Label: tradition. The uses of kusha, sesame and barley in the rite are living tradition, and the reasons given, purity, protection, association with Vishnu, dearness to the ancestors, the link to the harvest, are explanations told by families and priests that differ from place to place. The one point tied to a text is that in the Mahabharata's account of Nimi's Shraddha, in the Anushasana Parva, section ninety-one, the guests are seated on kusha grass. The last reflections are my own and not tr ...