Double tiered offering container

It is likely that the shape of this double-tiered offering container alludes to Mount Meru, the sacred mountain at the center of the universe in Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies. Among the figures depicted on the container are a Brahma deity, who exists above Mount Meru; a woman with a mirror (or fan), who may be a dweller on earth; and a half-woman-half-bird, a type of creature that lives in the forests on the slopes of Meru. Notice the depictions of animals on the lower tier. These are symbols of the twelve-year cycle.