oblation

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In Christianity, the offering up by the faithful of any gift for use usually by the clergy, the church, or the sick or poor.

The bread and wine offered for consecration in the Eucharist are oblations. In the Middle Ages children dedicated to a monastery and left there to be brought up were called oblates. Later, oblates were laity who lived at or in close connection with a monastery but who did not take religious vows. Members of certain Roman Catholic communities take the title oblate (e.g., the Oblates Regular of St. Benedict).

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puja - In Hinduism, a form of ceremonial worship.

Arya Samaj - Reform sect of Hinduism, founded in 1875 by Dayananda Sarasvati, in order to reestablish the Vedas as revealed and infallible truth.

Manu - In the mythology of India, the first man and the legendary author of the Manu-smrti.

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sacrifice - Any form under which life manifests itself in the world or in which life can be symbolized may be a sacrificial oblation. In fact, there are few things that have not, at some time or in some place, served as an offering. Any attempt to categorize the material of sacrifice will group together heterogeneous phenomena; thus, the category human sacrifice includes several fundamentally different ...

sacrifice - Communion in the sense of a bond between the worshipper and the sacred power is fundamental to all sacrifice. Certain sacrifices, however, promote this communion by means of a sacramental meal. The meal may be one in which the sacrificial oblation is simply shared by the deity and the worshippers. Of this sort were the Greek thysia and the Jewish zevah sacrifices in which one portion of the ...

sphagia - in ancient Greek religion, a propitiatory sacrifice made to the chthonic (underworld) deities and forces (including the winds and the spirits of the dead). Unlike the joyful sacrifices to the celestial gods, there was no sharing of the oblation by the worshipers of the sphagia. The victim, either a human being or an animal substitute, was cut to pieces and burned, buried, or cast into a river.

sacrifice - Along with libation and the sacrificial effusion of blood, one of the commonest means of making an oblation available to sacred beings is to burn it. In both ancient Judaism and Greek religion the major offering was the burnt or fire offering. Through the medium of the fire, the oblation was conveyed to the divine recipient. In ancient Greece the generic term for sacrifice (thysia) was derived ...

Vedic religion - Vedism was a polytheistic sacrificial religion that was very different from its successor, Hinduism. Vedism involved the worship of numerous male divinities who were connected with the sky and natural phenomena. The priests who officiated at this worship were known as Brahmans. The complex Vedic ceremonies, for which the hymns of the Rigveda were composed, centred on the ritual sacrifice of ...

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