puja

plural pujas · alternative pooja

1. countableuncountableA religious ritual performed in South Asia as an act of worship.First known use 17th c.

   ‘Godbole's pujah did it,’ cried the Englishman.

   1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin, published 2005, page 122

   3 more examples

   The Grunth, the holy book of the Sikhs, seems to be becoming an object of idolatrous worship. They do puja to it, and carry it in procession daily.

   1879, Frances Maria Milman, Memoir of the Right Rev. Robert Milman, page 79

   The priest had performed the puja and tied a string around his father's silk purse to make sure that the Rana didn't spend even a copper coin while he was a guest of Merta.

   1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 43

   Deeming the tank ‘polluted’ and its water unfit for consumption, a puja ceremony was performed by Brahmin men to ‘purify’ the reservoir.

   2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 18

alternative Pooja

1. A female given name from Sanskrit used in India.