Every year, hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims travel to the sacred cities of Prayagraj, Varanasi, and Gaya to perform some of the most important religious rites of their lives — Pind Daan, Asthi Visarjan, Shradh, Tarpan, and other ancestral ceremonies. They arrive with open hearts, deep grief, and a sincere desire to fulfill their duty to their departed loved ones. And a distressing number of them are met, at the very gates of these sacred cities, by individuals whose primary purpose is not to help them but to exploit them.
This is the problem that Prayag Pandits was built to solve. We are not simply a pandit booking service. We are a platform that exists specifically to protect the devout pilgrim from a system of fraud and exploitation that has been allowed to operate in India’s holiest places for far too long — and to ensure that the sacred rites they travel so far to perform are done correctly, authentically, and at a fair and transparent price.
Religious Fraud at India’s Holiest Places: The Problem We Set Out to Solve
Brahmins, Pandits, and Pandas have immense sacred significance in Hindu tradition. From the earliest Vedic age, the Brahmin class was entrusted with the knowledge and performance of the rituals upon which the welfare of the community depended. This responsibility was — and in many quarters remains — discharged with genuine scholarship, devotion, and service. Many of India’s pandits are deeply learned, spiritually committed men who carry the weight of this tradition with great seriousness.
But at the pilgrimage sites — particularly at Prayagraj’s Triveni Sangam, at Varanasi’s ghats, and at Gaya’s Vishnupad Temple — a parallel system has long operated alongside the genuine practitioners. This system involves agents, touts, fixers, and a category of individuals who call themselves pandits or pandas primarily because this designation grants them access to pilgrims in vulnerable moments of grief and spiritual need. These individuals operate through a combination of confidence, aggression, and the exploitation of the pilgrim’s unfamiliarity with both the ritual and the place.
Dakshina — the voluntary offering made to a pandit for his services — is a sacred and beautiful tradition. In the genuine practice of dakshina, the devotee offers what they are able, and the pandit accepts with gratitude whatever is given. The amount is never specified in advance, never demanded, and never contested. It is an act of mutual respect between the devotee and the ritual specialist.
What happens at too many pilgrimage sites today is the opposite of this. Pilgrims are approached by individuals claiming to be their ancestral family’s hereditary pandas (pujaris assigned to specific families by gotra lineage), who demand not voluntary dakshina but specific, very large sums before the ritual has even begun. Amounts of ₹20,000, ₹50,000, and higher are demanded routinely. Pilgrims who refuse or ask to negotiate are threatened with spiritual consequences — told that their ancestors will be displeased, that the ritual will be ineffective, or that they will face misfortune. Some are surrounded by multiple individuals working in coordinated groups, making it nearly impossible for a lone pilgrim or small family to resist.
In some documented cases, pilgrims have been asked to surrender their gold ornaments when cash demands could not be met. In others, pilgrims who politely declined one agent have been physically directed to another agent who is part of the same network. And because these encounters happen at moments of deep emotional vulnerability — a family performing last rites for a parent, NRI visitors performing Pind Daan for a grandparent they barely knew — the pressure is almost impossible for the unprepared pilgrim to withstand.
This is the problem we started Prayag Pandits to address.
How Prayag Pandits Can Help You: Our Complete Services
Prayag Pandits offers a comprehensive range of sacred services at the major tirthas of India, performed by verified, trained pandits who operate under our supervision and accountability standards. Here is a complete overview of what we offer and how we protect you through every step of the process.
1. Pind Daan
Pind Daan — the offering of rice-ball oblations (pindas) for the liberation of departed ancestors — is the most commonly requested service at Prayag Pandits. We perform Pind Daan at:
- Prayagraj (Triveni Sangam) — the most powerful Pind Daan location, where three sacred rivers meet
- Gaya (Vishnupad Temple and Falgu River) — the pre-eminent tirtha specifically for Pind Daan
- Varanasi (Manikarnika and Asi Ghat) — where Lord Shiva’s grace enhances every offering
- Badrinath (Brahmakapal) — the sacred site in the Himalayas for ancestral rites
- Ujjain — the city of Mahakaleshwar, where Shiva as lord of time presides over ancestral rites
2. Asthi Visarjan
Asthi Visarjan — the immersion of a deceased person’s ashes and bone fragments in a sacred river — is one of the most urgently needed services among grieving families. We perform Asthi Visarjan at Prayagraj, Varanasi, Haridwar, and other sacred rivers, including arrangements for families who cannot travel in person and need the rite performed on their behalf with full video documentation.
3. Ganga Poojan and Ganga Aarti
For pilgrims who wish to perform a formal Ganga Poojan at the Triveni Sangam or at Varanasi’s Dashashwamedh Ghat, our pandits perform the complete ritual with the proper mantras, the correct materials, and full guidance for the family’s active participation in the ceremony.
4. Rudrabhishek
Rudrabhishek — the sacred ablution of Lord Shiva with milk, honey, ghee, and other sacred substances accompanied by the Shri Rudram — is one of the most powerful Shiva worship rituals in the Hindu tradition. We arrange Rudrabhishek at Varanasi’s Kashi Vishwanath Temple and at other Shiva temples, with pandits trained in the correct Vedic recitation of the Rudram.
5. Brahmin Bhoj (Brahman Bhoj)
Brahmin Bhoj — the ritual feeding of qualified Brahmins as a part of Shradh, Pind Daan, or other ancestral ceremonies — is a required element of many Hindu rites. We arrange Brahmin Bhoj with verified Brahmins who meet the traditional qualification criteria, at Prayagraj and other locations.
6. Special Poojan and Yajnas
For more complex ritual requirements — including Mahamrityunjay Yajna, Mahaprayashchittam Sankalp, Shanti Poojan, and extended multi-day rituals — we provide fully qualified Vedic pandits who can guide families through the complete procedure with scholarly accuracy.
The Gaya Pind Daan Story: Why This Matters
Gaya is located about 100 km from Patna, the capital of Bihar. According to the religious stories, Goddess Sita performed Pind Daan at the bank of the Falgu river at Gaya for King Dashrath. The story tells that when Sita Ji was asked for proof of her performance of the rite, she said that the Falgu river, a tulsi plant, and a cow were present at the site to witness the ceremony. These three witnesses, however, denied this — and Sita Ji cursed all three in consequence. Lord Rama then performed Pind Daan for his beloved father, and since then the tradition of Pind Daan at Gaya has been followed with particular reverence.
At Gaya today, the pilgrim who arrives without prior arrangement faces the most aggressive system of unauthorized pandas in all of India. The hereditary Gaya pandas (pujaris assigned to specific families by surname and gotra) have operated their exclusive territory claims for generations, and independent pilgrims are routinely subjected to demands that can reach ₹50,000 or more for a single day’s Pind Daan. Our pandits perform Gaya Pind Daan at completely transparent, pre-agreed prices — and the ritual itself is conducted with the full traditional procedure, not a truncated version designed to process pilgrims as quickly as possible.
What Makes Prayag Pandits Different: Our Five Commitments
1. Transparent Pricing — No Surprises, No Demands
Every service we offer has a published price on our website. This price includes the pandit’s fees, the ritual materials (samagri), and all associated costs. There are no hidden additions, no demand for extra dakshina during the ritual, and no ambiguity about what you will be asked to pay. You know the complete cost before you book, and the price does not change after the booking is confirmed. This alone represents a revolution in how pilgrimage services are delivered in India.
2. Verified, Trained Pandits
Every pandit in the Prayag Pandits network has been personally verified — their qualifications, their character, and their ritual knowledge have been assessed before they are admitted to our platform. We do not work with touts, agents, or individuals whose primary qualification is territorial claim over a ghat. Our pandits are scholars of the relevant traditions who perform the rituals correctly, completely, and with genuine devotion.
This is particularly important for complex rites like Narayan Bali, Pind Daan for Akal Mrityu cases, or multi-day Shradh sequences during Pitrupaksha. These rituals have specific procedural requirements that only a properly trained pandit can fulfill — and an incorrectly performed ritual is not merely useless but can be spiritually counterproductive.
3. More Than 50% More Affordable Than Unauthorized Alternatives
Our services are consistently priced at more than 50% less than what unauthorized pandas and touts typically demand from pilgrims at the ghat. This is not because we cut corners on the ritual — it is because we have eliminated the layers of intermediaries, agents, and fixers whose commissions are embedded in the inflated prices demanded by the informal system. You pay the fair price for the actual service, nothing more.
4. Complete Documentation for NRI Families
For NRI families who are performing Pind Daan, Asthi Visarjan, or Shradh on behalf of a parent or grandparent while living abroad, we provide full video and photographic documentation of every ritual. You receive a complete visual record of the ceremony — the pandit, the sacred site, the ritual materials, and the key moments of the rite — so that you have the confidence of knowing the ceremony was genuinely performed as ordered. This service is not available from the informal system and has been one of the most valued aspects of our service for NRI clients worldwide.