Talk:Offering (Buddhism)

Need for Mahayana information
I think is currently biased towards theravada. Secretlondon 10:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As the main author of this stubby article, let me say I can definitely understand your view.
 * More accurately, this article is largely based on my limited Theravada knowledge (or accessing of pertinent articles) related to this topic (as well as some material from Zen roshi Phillip Kapleau). (Personally, I have essentially questionable, uncitable Mahayana knowledge on this topic.) I'd like to additionally point out that I have at times actively solicited Mahayana users, asking them to add information (even uncited) to this article (as can seen by some contributions after mine).
 * If you (or anyone else) have pertinent (preferably cited) material to add, please please please add to this article. (If nothing else, perhaps you can add an appropriate external link?) If this article's current structure or format (e.g., subtitles) seem to be an inhibitor to the addition of pertinent Mahayana/Vajrayana information, please let's also discuss that as I would be happy to see any modifications that would allow for pan-Buddhist inclusiveness.
 * Thanks so much! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * FWIW, giving more thought to addressing your concern (e.g., trying to make explicit an existing disproportionate amount of Theravada information), in the material section, I separated out contributions that I believe reflect different Theravada and Mahayana practices. (Doing such left the Theravada section bereft of information regarding the offering of candles and incense, so I then added some additional English/Pali verses there.)
 * Alternately, perhaps a broader division needs to be created. For instance, is the notion of "practice offerings" specific to Theravada practice??  If so, please feel free to move the "Theravada practices" and "Mahayana practices" to level-two (==) subheadings and the "Material offerings" and "Practice offerings" to level-three (===) subheadings (cutting and pasting text as needed).
 * I hope this might help, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 20:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * One last thought (at least for the moment) -- maybe this article should be all about "material offerings" and the notion of "practice offerings" should be pushed to an end note (or simplified, tangential paragraph). Would this better reflect general usage of this notion?
 * Also, any suggestions regarding the whole anjali paragraph (now at the end of the intro section)? I'm tempted to reduce it to an in-line dab at the beginning of the article, but I do not readily see a pertinent article to redirect interested readers to.
 * Just some additional stray thoughts. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 20:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, got a chunk of time to focus more properly on this. In short, to create more balance, I'm going to incorporate material from Prof. Peter Harvey's "An introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, history and practices" (1990, Cambridge University Press), pp. 172-76.  To the best of my limited understanding, he and his text are highly regarded and the text is intended to be representative of all major Buddhist schools.  (Due to my uncertainty in regards to how much time I have now, I'll make a series of small edit.)  I hope you and others find the end result an improvement. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. If it's not obvious, after reviewing the existing material and Harvey (1990), it dawned on me that this article was conflating "offering" with "puja," where the latter refers to offerings, bowing and chanting. So I moved the material specific to the latter (e.g., the paragraph on bowing) to a new article: Puja (Buddhism) (which was formerly a redirect to this page).  I hope this adds clarity.  Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Biosafety of flower offering....
See my comment in the following content....
 * Laboratory
 * Quarantine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.64.219.241 (talk) 00:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=flower%20catholics&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=flower+christian&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1.&as_sdtp=on&as_sdts=5&hl=en

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+flower+buddhism&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+flower+lslamic&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+flower+lslam&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

Memorial and Funeral --222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+flower+memorial&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+flower+funeral&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

Is the image added in December 2013 related to accurate for this article?
[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Offering_%28Buddhism%29&diff=587275369&oldid=544595817 This edit] in December 2013 added an image related Chaitya Bhoomi to whose file description page on the Commons says "Ambedkar's death anniversary, 6 December, is observed as Mahaparinirvan Din. Lakhs of people across the nation throng Chaityabhoomi to pay homage to him on this day."

Is "pay[ing] homage to [Ambedkar]" the same the type of offering described in this article? It doesn't appear to be the case. I recommend that either the image be removed, OR if the type of offering shown in this image is within the scope of this topic, that the article be expanded to include text which describes the offering this image actually illustrates in the context of a on offering in Buddhism. If the article already does this, then I missed it. In this case, the wording needs to be tweaked so it is clear that this image is related to the article. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  03:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Ambedkar is regarded as Bodhisatva. And people pay him homage in Buddhist manner on Ambedkar's death anniversary, 6 December, is observed as Mahaparinirvan Din. JAIBHIM5 (talk) 10:53, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

What is the result
I am still unsure in reading this article what actually happens to a physical object being given as an offering. If it is a small piece in a candled ceremony, I would assume it is burned, but this is in no way implicitly or explicitly said in the article. More importantly however, for a large offering such as a Buddha's hand citron fruit, it is not specified whether the entire fruit or just a sliver is given as an offering. If the entire fruit is given, is it ceremonially presented and then later processed/eaten as in many other religions? Is it put in a larger bonfire? Obviously it is not left on a shrine to rot and become a fly nursery.

As I have never seen any type of Buddhist offering ceremony, I would hardly be a good person to add this to the article upon finding written sources on my own when the other editors watching have first-hand experience with this, so if you could address this gap in explaining how an offering is processed, that would be very helpful. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:56, 22 April 2017 (UTC)