Perhaps I should not hesitate to ask my question. I have always felt that the seeking of answers to Dhamma is important and urgent. Lal, please leave the question aside if you are not yet ready to answer it. I will definitely understand.
You have mentioned before that it is meritorious to offer fruits and perhaps other food to devas, as the devas can manifest much more quantities of the food for their underlings. But what about the offering of flowers, incense and lights in certain East Asian countries? Can the scent of flowers and incense serve as food for devas as well? What about lights?
In addition, many Chinese burn joss money, miniature paper houses, clothes and cars for their dead relatives, thinking that their relatives will receive them as real life-sized houses, clothes and cars and money.
However, after reading the suttas in the Tipitaka, I have not read about The Buddha saying that such practices will benefit their dead relatives. However The Buddha has said that dana whose merits are dedicated to dead relatives will benefit only those relatives who are born as pretas, not those who are born as human beings, animals, hell beings or devas. The above practices of burning offerings do not seem to me to be correctly classified as dana though. Am I wrong to think so?
Knowing that this is a sensitive issue, I would still appreciate it very much if you could shed some light on this.
Thank you very much in advance for your answers.