page_title: Puja (Hinduism)
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Puja (Hinduism) / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: বাংলা: হিন্দু পূজার অন্যতম উপকরণ হলো পুষ্পপাত্র। এটি মূলত তামার হয়ে থাকে।
context_page_description: Puja or pooja is a worship ritual performed in the morning by Hindus to offer devotional homage and prayer to one or more deities, to host and honour a guest, or to spiritually celebrate an event. It may honour or celebrate the presence of special guest, or their memories after they die. The word "pūjā" is Sanskrit, and means reverence, honour, homage, adoration and worship. Puja, the loving offering of light, flowers, and water or food to the divine, is the essential ritual of Hinduism. For the worshipper, the divine is visible in the image, and the divinity sees the worshipper. The interaction between human and deity, between human and guru, is called darshan, seeing.
  Puja rituals are also held by Buddhists and Jains. In Hindu practice, puja is done on a variety of occasions, frequency and settings. It may include a daily puja done in the home, or occasional temple ceremonies and annual festivals. In other cases, puja is held to mark a few lifetime events such as birth of a baby or a wedding, or to begin a new venture.
context_section_description: Puja has unclear origins. J. A. B. van Buitenen states that "puja" emerged from yajna rituals, linking it to the Pravargya Vedic rite. The Rigveda in hymn 8.17 uses the word "Sachipujanayam" (शाचिपूजनायं) in the twelfth verse, where it is an epithet for god Indra in a context of vocative singular "praise". The ancient scholar and Vedic text commentator Sāyana explains the term as a form of "praise, worship, invocation". The Grhyasutras use puj in the context of rites, as does Sanskrit scholar Panini. However, none of these texts imply puja as a form of devotional prayer worship.
  According to Natalia Lidova, puja is unlikely to be of Indo-Aryan and Vedic origin because it lacks a Sanskrit root and it also lacks cognate parallels in other Indo-European languages. Its root are probably Dravidian in origin, but the evidence for this alternative hypothesis is also largely missing possibly because devotional worship is not as ancient as Hinduism. Collins states that the roots may be "Pu" (flower) and "ge" (make), or a form of "making flower sacrifice". However, this proposal is problematic because "Pu" comes from an Indo-European root, while "ge" from Dravidian. Charpentier suggests the origin of the word Puja may lie in the Dravidian languages. Two possible Tamil roots have been suggested: Poosai "to smear with something" or "(பூ (poo - flower) + செய் (sei - do) = பூசை (poosai))" "to do with flowers".
caption: Puspa-patra (Bengali:পুষ্পপাত্র), important and essential utensils of worshipping, usually made with copper
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