Worship in Buddhism

Worship is a tricky word for Buddhists, as, strictly speaking there is no creator God who is the judge of all who is to be worshipped or supplicated. Certainly, outwardly, it would seem that Buddhists involved in ritual and religious ceremonies are worshipping, and certainly to the Muslim invaders of India in the this seemed to be what was happening and therefore justified their destruction of Buddhist shrines and monastery as places of idolatry. A Buddhist shrine will commonly have a statute or Rupa of a Buddha figure upon it, a Buddhist may well bow before the Buddha figure or even prostrate before it, and the ritual ceremonies that take place are commonly called Puja, a word that is often translated as "worship"

A better term for translation of Puja would be reverence. Essentially what is happening is reverence for the ideas of Buddhism, gratitude at finding and being able to use the teaching. Puja or ceremony in Buddhism consists of practices that aim to engage and refine the emotions; music, chanting and mantra, ritual gesture (mudra), and symbolic offerings are all used.