Etymology of puujaa

[DR.S.KALYANARAMAN]

On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, WILLIAM HARMAN wrote:
> of Tamilnadu. Priests frequently insisted that the word comes from a
> compound of the Tamil terms "puu" (flower) and "cey" (to do or make).
> Doing puja, they insisted, derives from worship that involved an offering
> of flowers. My own disclaimer is that I never ceased to be amazed by
> the creative etymologies that Tamil chauvinism managed to find. The
> 
Maybe,this is not so creative an etymology. If I remember right,
Burrow and Emeneau in their lexicon point this out as the etymology
of pUjA, and as an instance of Sanskrit borrowing from Dravidian.

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman
Indus Sarasvati Research Centre,
20 Warren Road #7, Mylapore, Madras 600004
Tel. 91-44-4936288; fax. 91-44-4996380