Offering ［供養］ ( kuyō)

offering ［供養］ ( kuyō): To donate, with a sense of veneration, various things to the Buddha and the Buddhist Order; also, that which is donated. Offerings included food, drink, clothing, bedding, medicine, flowers, incense, lamps, and necessary utensils. Among these, clothing, food and drink, bedding, and medicine were called the four kinds of offerings. Buddhist sutras and their commentaries list various sets of offerings.

For example, the two kinds of offerings indicate the offering of goods and the offering of the Law, i.e., the preaching of the Buddha’s teachings. The three kinds of offerings are the offering of goods, the offering of the Law, and the offering of fearlessness.

The offering of fearlessness means to relieve others’ fears and give them courage. Another set of the three kinds of offerings is the offering of goods, the offering of praise and reverence, and the offering of the Law. A third set of the three kinds of offerings is the offering of food and drink, the offering of rare treasures, and the offering of body and life.

The offerings described in the “Teacher of the Law” (tenth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra are generally called the ten kinds of offerings, that is, the offering of flowers, incense, necklaces, powdered incense, paste incense, incense for burning, silken canopies, streamers and banners, clothing, and music. In this chapter, these offerings are described as being made to the Lotus Sutra. Another view of the ten kinds of offerings regards “silken canopies” and “streamers and banners” as one offering, and adds an act of “pressing one’s palms together.”

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