The eightfold offering.
Water, sandalwood paste, flower, incense, lamp, unbroken rice, sweet and fruit, each standing for a virtue and each placed in a fixed position. What is unusual is the theology: the image cannot receive anything, and the worshipper knows it. The rite is understood to act entirely on the one performing it.
The Ashta-prakari puja is the eightfold offering of image-worshipping Jains and its sequence is fixed: jala, water poured over the image in abhisheka; chandana, sandalwood paste applied at nine points; pushpa, flowers; dhupa, incense; dipaka, lamp; akshata, unbroken rice arranged in a swastika with three dots and a crescent above it, representing the four states of rebirth, the three jewels, and the abode of the liberated; naivedya, a sweet; and phala, fruit. Each stands for a specific renunciation or virtue and the worshipper is instructed to reflect on it. The first five are performed touching the image, in unstitched clothing kept for the purpose, after bathing; the last three are placed on a table without contact. The theology is unambiguous and stated in the manuals: the Tirthankara cannot accept, cannot respond, and gains nothing. The rite is efficacious on the person performing it. Sthanakvasi and Terapanth Jains reject the whole practice as inconsistent with that theology and worship no image at all, which makes this the most visible sectarian divide in daily Jain life.
The same ground, other faiths
rites that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.