Puja Offerings: Physical and Mental

Making offerings to the deity is an essential part of puja.

This constitutes two aspects -

• Physical offering
• Mental offering

Physical offering

All objects are made up of the pancha bhutas. So if we offer the pancha bhutas, it is as good as we have offered everything.

1. Earth - represented by chandana.
2. Water - water itself.
3. Fire - represented by lamp.
4. Air - represented by incense (dhupa)
5. Ether / space - represented by flowers.
6. Food - represents Brahman which is beyond the five elements.

Mental offering

In the mental offering, the worshiper visualizes that he is offering to the deity the five elements of his own bodyf.

The mantras such as ‘Vam Abatmana Jalam Kalpayami’ point towards this.

It symbolizes the surrender of the physical self and the merging with the divine. 

Both aspecta acknowledge the deity as a living, conscious being. The food and offerings, being infused with life forces, are treated as living entities. They  represent the connection between the worshiper, the deity, and the universal elements.

In vedic yajnas, the food offering is infused with pranas and even sensory organs before offering to gods.

The following mantra from Shukla Yajurveda points towards this -

धान्यम् असि धिनुहि देवान् ।प्राणाय त्वा । उदानाय त्वा । व्यानाय त्वा । दीर्घाम् अनु प्रसितिम् आयुषे धां देवो वः सविता हिरण्यपाणिः प्रति गृभ्णात्व् अच्छिद्रेण पाणिना । चक्षुषे त्वा । महीनां पयोऽसि ॥

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi