Karna of the Mahabharata was a great giver. Whoever came to his door asking for help, he never sent away empty-handed. When Indra came to him disguised as a Brahmin, Karna took off even the armour that was joined to his own body, and gave it. He fell as a hero at Kurukshetra, and went to heaven.
In heaven he grew hungry. When he asked for food, a plate heaped with gold and jewels was set before him. Karna could not understand it. 'Hunger needs food, not gold,' he said, and he asked Indra, the king of the devas, why he was being given gold to eat.
Indra said, 'Karna, all your life you gave gold to whoever came asking. But you never gave anyone a handful of food, and in the shraddh you never gave food to your pitars. What you gave is what you are given here.'
Karna said, 'I did not even know who had given me birth, or who my pitars were. The people who came to me asked for help; none of them ever said they were hungry. So I gave gold. I knew nothing beyond that.'
Then Karna was given the chance to put his mistake right, and he was sent back to the earth for sixteen days. There, remembering his pitars, he kept their shraddh, gave them water in tarpan, and gave food to the poor, as much as he could. Then he went back to heaven, and this time there was food for him. Those sixteen days came to be called Pitru Paksha.
A folk tale is told in the fortnight too. Joge and Bhoge were two brothers who lived apart. Joge was rich and Bhoge was poor, but there was great love between them. Joge's wife was proud of her wealth, and Bhoge's wife was simple of heart.
When Pitru Paksha came, Joge's wife asked him to keep the pitars' shraddh. Joge thought it a waste and tried to put it off. But his wife knew that if no shraddh was kept, people would talk; and she saw a good chance to invite her own family from her parents' home to a feast, and show them how well she lived. 'Perhaps you are saying no for fear it will be too much for me,' she said, 'but it won't be. I will call Bhoge's wife, and the two of us will do all the work.' And she sent Joge to her parents' home with the invitation.
The next morning, as she had been asked, Bhoge's wife came early and set to work. She got the kitchen ready and cooked dish after dish, and when all the work was done she went back to her own house — for she too had her own pitars' shraddh and tarpan to keep. Joge's wife did not ask her to stay, and she did not stay.
Soon it was midday, and the pitars came down to the earth. Joge's and Bhoge's pitars went first to Joge's house, and there they saw his wife's family sitting at the meal. Disappointed, they went to Bhoge's house. What was there? Only an agiyari, a little fire given in the pitars' name. The pitars licked its ash, and went away hungry to the bank of the river.
Soon all the pitars had gathered at the river, and each began to praise the shraddh their own house had kept. Joge's and Bhoge's pitars told their story too. Then they thought: if Bhoge had been able, they would not have gone hungry — but in Bhoge's house there was not even bread for two meals. Thinking of this, they felt pity for him, and suddenly they began to dance and sing: 'Let there be wealth in Bhoge's house, let there be wealth in Bhoge's house.'
Evening was coming on, and Bhoge's children had had nothing to eat all day. 'We are hungry,' they told their mother. To put them off, Bhoge's wife said, 'Go — the haudi, the big tub in the courtyard, is lying upside down. Turn it over, and whatever you find, share it and eat.' The children went to it and saw that the haudi was full of gold mohars. They ran back to their mother and told her everything. When Bhoge's wife came into the courtyard and saw it, she too could not believe her eyes.
So Bhoge too became rich, but wealth did not make him proud. The next year Pitru Paksha came again. On the day of the shraddh Bhoge's wife cooked fifty-six kinds of dishes. They called Brahmins and kept the shraddh, fed them and gave them dakshina, and with respect they fed Joge and his wife — the elder brother and his wife — in vessels of gold and silver. And the pitars were pleased, and satisfied.
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