Puja

The practice

Puja is the act of worship offered to a deity, at a home shrine or in a temple. Hindus understand the deity as truly present in the consecrated image, and the worship treats that presence as an honoured guest in the house.

How it is kept

The worshipper bathes and dresses the image, and offers water, flowers, fruit, incense, and sweets. A lamp or camphor flame is waved before the deity in the rite called aarti, and the offered food is returned as prasad, grace in edible form, and shared. Temple pujas follow a fixed daily round from waking the deity to putting the deity to rest.

What it means

Puja is devotion made physical: seeing and being seen by the deity, a meeting Hindus call darshan. It turns an ordinary morning into an audience, and a kitchen shelf with a small shrine into a temple in miniature.