The main ritual Hindus, Buddhists and Jains participate in is called pooja. The word pooja, also spelled puja, means reverence, honor, and worship in Sanskrit. Certain items are used for puja, and those various tools are called puja samagri. Puja samagri aims to involve the senses in worship. Puja involves offering light, flowers, water, food, or incense to deities.
Puja can be performed daily in homes or for special occasions to spiritually celebrate at temples and festivals dedicated to specific deities. Special occasions include rites of passage such as birth of a baby, wedding, or beginnings of other important life phases. Its purpose is to offer devotional homage and prayer to deities. The ritual invites deities into the home. Throughout the puja, the worshipper and the deity interact through a method called darshan, which means seeing. The worshipper believes that they are seen by the deity during the ritual.
Ceremonial bells, called ghanti, are usually a part of puja. Historically they are believed to have spiritual connections for warding off spirits, frightening away evil, and welcoming gods. In Hinduism, bells are usually hung in the temples for devotees to ring while entering. It is also said the sounds of bells assist people in focusing on deities rather than their ongoing thoughts. This specific bell shows Hanuman, the monkey god. The body of the bell is decorated with different figures and floral designs.
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Lamps can be part of rituals, as well as being a source of light. Some worship includes lamp offerings to deities. As a certain kind of oil burner, this figure is called deepelakshmi. It takes its name from the goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi, and a lamp which is called deepa. These names are combined because Lakshmi holds a lamp in her hands. In this specific figure, Lakshmi holds a lamp bowl in her left hand and a bottle of oil in her right hand. From the hole over her palm, oil pours into her body and fills the bottle in her hand. The same amount of oil keeps flowing from the bottle into the lamp bowl as the lamp continues to burn it.
This video shows the Hindu shrine and puja ceremony performed by a woman named Logambika Padmanabhan. She has images of different gods, candles, flowers, and incenses. She lights the candles, and then the incenses. After that she rings the bell and offers water to the gods to show her respect.
