History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.125.5

v6.c81.125.5

4 14 9, 'nityā ca pūjā yathopadeśam') Yāj (I 229 ff) mentions in śrāddha *āsana, arghya, gandha, mālya, dhūpa, dīpa &c* When the worship of images became common, the upacāras that had been offered for showing honour and worship to worthy men were by a natural analogy employed in it In my view the theory that pūjā and the upacāras were borrowed from the Dravidians or some non-Aryan people cannot be held to be proved, is quite speculative and that ‘pūjā’ of images of gods was an indigenous development. Medieval writers were careful to point out that there was no essential difference between yāga (vedic or other sacrifice) and pūjā, as in both there was the giving of some substance intending it for a deity. Prof J Charpentier contributed a paper on ‘the meaning and etymology of pūjā’ to the Indian Antiquary vol 56 pp 93–99 and pp 130 ff I demur to his conclusions He points out that ‘pu’ in Tamil means ‘flower’, that the word pūjā is derived from Dravidian ‘pūcu’, ‘pūsu’ to paint or daub’ (p. 133) and asks the question why red colour is used in the worship of Gods; he himself answers it by suggesting that it was a substitute for blood There is no reason whatever for assuming that pūjā was derived from ‘pu’ and not from ‘puṣpa’ (flower) which was known to the Ṛgveda (II. 13 7 ‘puṣpiṇīḥ’ and X 97 3 ‘puṣpavatīḥ’).