Dear Ong Yong Peng,

I am a bit confused -- I afraid I have accidentally deleted your actual
translation so I can't quote it verbatim, but it was the one about the girls
offering flowers to the Buddha, in which I think you had "flowers" in the
accusative. Some days ago Charles Ball also asked about the usage of *puuj-
:

> Pupphehi Buddha.m puujeti. I'm expecting, flowers to be (acc), but
> it's (aux) or (inst) or (abl). Is this correct? Is either usage fine?

In Sanskrit usage one normally "puujas" (= verb) somebody (accusative) with
XYX {instrumental, as with the Pali "pupphehi .... etc" above. The Skt
usage is more transparent if one considers that *puuj- actually means
something like "worship", rather than literally "offer", although "worship /
show reverence" etc may, of course, often involve some form of offering.
Does Pali differ to Skt and allow other construction forms with an
accusative ? From a Skt point of view this would be tantamount to
worshipping the flowers !

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge