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by Jayaram V
The puja ceremony in the present day form was not practiced during the
Vedic period. The Vedic Aryans had their own way of worshipping gods which involved invocation of various deities through chanting of mantras, performance of rituals and offering of various material substances. The fire god Agni was the central deity in most of these rituals as he was supposed to be the divine messenger between gods and men. The Vedic people worshipped the elements of nature in a very systematic manner in tune with the beliefs and religious texts of their times.
We are not sure what methods of worship was followed by the people of Indus valley civilization, who came prior to the Aryans and established a great civilization of their own. The available evidence suggests that, though they were driven more by materialistic considerations in organizing their society and communities, they too followed some form of elaborate rituals and sacrificial ceremonies involving water and other materials. The statuettes and symbols unearthed during the excavations at Indus valley sites suggest that they probably worshipped idols and symbols, like perhaps the people of the latter day Vedic period.
It is difficult to say when and how exactly the puja ceremony of the present day form evolved. Some form of puja ceremony, akin to the present day one in some respects, was definitely in vogue during the epic period. Both the major epics of Hinduism, namely the Ramayana and the Mahabharata refer occasionally to the performance of pujas with flowers and offerings by their principal characters.
According to one theory, the puja ceremony was brought to India by the invading foreigners or the travelling merchant caravans from across the borders, during the pre Christian era. At least the idea of offering of flowers and incense to the images during the worship seems to have came from outside.
Another theory is that puja was originally a tribal practice, outside the pale of Vedic society, which became incorporated subsequently into the Vedic religion, with the growing popularity of bhakti movement and synthesis of many streams of tribal practices. This theory seems to be more plausible, though some element of foreign influence cannot be entirely ruled out.
The emergence of Bhakti movement definitely contributed to the emergence of puja worship as the main form of religious worship at the mass level. The followers of Saivism from the south were ardent worshippers of Siva and must have made the practice more popular among the rural people. Most of the early Saiva saints were dedicated devotees, who used to move from village to village, singing the glories of their beloved Lord. Some of the legendary devotees of Siva, like the legendary Kannappa from the south, were known to be daily worshippers of Siva in the temples.
The emergence of the Bhagavad gita as a major and important religious text of the Hindus during the pre Christian era, also must have contributed greatly to the emergence of simple worship of God. The Bhagavad gita encourages simple form of divine worship with flowers or leaves and pure devotion instead of the excessive ritualism which marked the religion of the day. Here we come across a very direct and strong assurance from Vasudeva Krishna, believed by millions of Hindus as the true incarnation of God, that he would prefer simple forms of worship by sincere devotees to empty ritualism by pompous and egoistic scholars.
It is certain that the development of temple architecture and evolution of image worship into a regular form of religious worship must have contributed greatly to the popularity of puja ceremony in Hinduism. The contribution of puja ceremony in popularizing Hinduism among the common masses and there by reducing the importance of the priests, who were for long privy to the secrets of the Vedas and the Vedic mantras cannot be under estimated at this juncture.
The Buddha did not encourage rituals. In fact, he banned all forms of ritualistic worship by the Buddhist monks. The emphasis was more on the cleansing of the character and consciousness by cultivation of virtues through the Eightfold path. But the fact that the latter day school of Mahayana Buddhism reverted to worshipping the Buddha as a personal god more in the likeness of the puja ceremony of the Hindus suggests that even Buddhism could not escape from the all pervasive influence of this great tradition.
Puja as a special religious ceremony became very popular during the post Mauryan period, especially during the Gupta period, who built many temples of Vishnu in northern India during their long period of rule. The puja ceremony continued to flourish during the subsequent periods and became the main form of Hindu worship by the time Sri Adi Shankara emerged on the scene. During the latter and post Gupta periods, the puja ceremony must have influenced, and must have also been influenced in return, by the emergence of Tantricism as a major religious movement both in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Whatever be its origin and way of progress, the significance of puja lies in the fact that it took religious worship away from the exclusive control of the Vedic priests and temple priests and brought it right into the households of millions of Hindus, who were not familiar with the deeper aspects of Vedic ritualism. With its help they could now approach their beloved gods and communicate with them with simple devotion and sincere prayers. In short it gave a blow to the overwhelming influence of the middle men who were acting as the official brokers between God and his devotees!
It is not that the puja ceremonies did away with the necessity and involvement of priests altogether. The priest were still required in more complex forms of puja worship for the efficacy of the ceremony and imparting certain official status to the whole process. But it did reduce their importance considerably, opening at the same time the doors of Hinduism to those who could not afford to hire priests to perform the ceremonies in an expensive manner.
Today puja is the most common form of divine worship in Hinduism. It is the most popular medium through which every lay Hindu communicates with his or her personal Hindu god or goddess. Since the tradition of puja gathered strength from the unconventional minds of pure worshippers, it is bound to change its form and content from time to time and is bound to simplify itself further in the coming years. As the limitations of time and resources would continue to exert their overbearing influence on our lives and activities, the tradition of puja is certain to evolve into more simplified forms and methods in future.
Suggested Further Reading
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