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MyLifeXP>>Style>>Feeding Souls: The Sacred Rol...

Feeding Souls: The Sacred Role of Animals in Pitru Paksha

Akanksha Tiwari

Sep 13, 2025, 09:57 IST
During Pitru Paksha, feeding animals like cows, crows, dogs, ants, and even fish holds deep symbolic value. Each species represents a spiritual bridge between ancestors and devotees, ensuring peace for departed souls while inviting blessings for the living. This compassionate tradition highlights gratitude, humility, and the interconnectedness of life in Hindu rituals.
Pitru Paksha
Pitru Paksha, a deeply revered period in the Hindu calendar, is dedicated to honoring ancestors through solemn rituals like Shraddha, Tarpan, and Pinda Daan. Among these rites, feeding animals such as cows, crows, dogs, ants, and fish holds profound spiritual meaning. This act symbolizes compassion toward all life and is believed to convey offerings directly to departed souls, ensuring their peace and inviting blessings into the living world.

1. Cows

Cow
( Image credit : Freepik )
In Hindu symbolism, cows embody purity, nourishment, and abundance. Offering food to cows during Pitru Paksha is seen as an expression of gratitude toward these gentle beings and, by extension, to one’s ancestors. It is thought to forge a spiritual bridge, inviting blessings and prosperity through this act of reverence.

2. Crows

Crows
( Image credit : Freepik )
Crows are often considered ancestral emissaries. By feeding them, devotees symbolically offer food directly to departed souls. This gesture is believed to bring harmony to the family, invoke wisdom, and honor forebears in a respectful and spiritually potent way

3. Dogs

Dog
( Image credit : Freepik )
Dogs hold a unique place as protectors and companions in both life and myth. They are associated with Yama, the god of death, as well as Bhairava, an avatar of Shiva. Feeding dogs is believed to safeguard ancestral spirits and ensure their safe passage, in addition to seeking divine protection for the family

4. Ants

ants
( Image credit : Pixabay )
Feeding ants during Pitru Paksha is a humble homage to the smallest laborers of life. This practice underscores values like diligence, community, and interconnection. By recognizing even the tiniest creatures, practitioners believe they earn goodwill for ancestors and receive blessings that nurture family harmony

5. Fish & Other Beings

Regional traditions may include feeding fish and other life forms, grounded in the belief that compassion transcends species. Such offerings affirm that every gesture of kindness ripples outward, attracting ancestral love and fostering karmic harmony

Compassion That Connects Generations

Feeding animals during Pitru Paksha is more than ritual, it’s a testament to empathy, humility, and universal respect for life. Through simple, sacred acts, devotees honor ancestors, cultivate goodness, and sustain spiritual bonds across generations. In every morsel offered, ancestral love finds a path back to the present, enriching hearts and homes with peace and gratitude.

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