and while you're waiting for Cat to answer, the offerings would be a kind of worshipping; traditional Theravada chants:
With lights brightly shining
Abolishing this gloom
I adore the Enlightened One,
The Light of the three worlds.
With perfumed incense
And fragrant smoke
I worship the Exalted One,
Who is great and worthy of worship.
I worship the Buddha with these flowers;
May this virtue be helpful for my emancipation;
Just as these flowers fade,
Our body will undergo decay.
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There goes meep again.
Anyway Clair .. this is my cut and paste answer ๐
Basic offerings of candles, evergreens and incense are placed in front of the altar where the Gohonzon is enshrined. One or two candles are generally offered to provide light (electric candles are also used). One or two vases of evergreen are arranged on the altar in lieu of flowers that in Indian tradition were scattered over the Buddha as an offering. One to three sticks of incense are burned as an offering of fragrance. In addition, a cup of fresh water is generally placed in front of the Gohonzon in the morning, water being highly regarded in the hot country of India where Buddhism started. It also has become traditional to offer fruit or other food, in the spirit of the Buddha's disciples who offered him food.
It is easy to imagine the practicality and significance of these offerings in an era when candles may have been the only source of light, incense was used to purify the air and the Buddha depended on his followers to provide subsistence.
Much symbolism has been attached to these offerings over the centuries, but none of it constitutes the essence of faith. Today many view these offerings as creating an environment conducive to chanting and as symbolizing basic human needs: water and food sustain life, candles and incense engage our senses, while evergreen reminds us of the eternity of life.
PS I practice Mahayana Buddhism based on Shakyamuni Buddha's later sutra's.
