Impurities of the self:
Since contamination spreads by touch, the pujari must be careful to avoid touching impure items, such as the holes of the body, hair, the floor, or any impure substance. Offered articles are considered impure for one who is going to offer fresh articles. Therefore the worshiper must be careful to avoid touching offered items.
According to Manu, there are twelve impurities (mala) exuding from the body. A person must purify himself by cleansing the body with earth (or soap) and water after he contacts the first six impurities: fat. Semen, blood, marrow, urine or stool.
Water alone purifies a person after he contacts the second six impurities: nose mucus, phlegm, tears, perspiration, ear wax and exudations from the eyes.
Other contaminating agents are alcohol; low animals such as pigs, donkeys, dogs, and crows; low-class people (candalas and mlecchas). hair; nails; bone; corpses (human or animal); the smoke from a funeral pyre; a menstruating woman; eating; sleeping; sex; passing urine or stool: sinful activities; ucchista (food remnants); and the birth or death of close relatives.
Contackious disease is also contaminating. A person suffering from a skin disease, such as eczema, should not enter the kitchen or worship the Deity. If one has sores or wounds that could contaminate the paraphernalia or the Deity, one should also refrain from cooking and worship. A person suffering from a respiratory disease should not enter the kitchen

Purifying the Body:
After waking, a devotee should cleanse his body and its orifices by employing water and earth (or soap), by brushing the teeth, and by submerging himself in water.
A person should bathe to purify himself after sex, a bad dream, shaving, vomiting, purging, or after touching a dead body, a woman in her menstrual cycle, a candala, or a dead animal or its fat or bones.
A woman purifies herself during her menstrual cycle by bathing on the fourth day.

Purification of consciousness:
Purification of consciousness is very much interrelated with physical purification. Purification of the body and mind is done by spiritual knowledge, austerity and chanting Gayatri at the sandhyas.
The food one person eats, are very important. If a person eats pure food he becomes pure and if he eats impure food he becomes impure. Therefore one must always be careful to partake only of pure food at all times.

Pure Items:
A person does not need purification after contacting the following items, for they are considered pure:
Milk, Cow’s Urine & Dung, Yogurt, Ghee, Honey, Fruits, Kusa grass, running water.

Purification of Articles (dravya-suddhi):
Before touching an unoffered item during worship, the pujarl should purify his hands by performing acaman with samanya-arghya water from the panca-patra.
The left hand, which is considered impure, should not touch the Deity directly while He is being bathed. (If the Deity is made of metal, during the polishing, the pujari may hold or touch the Deity with a cloth held in his left hand.
Items like gold, silver, conchshell, jewels, stones, and spoons are purified by water. Grains, cloth, fruits, flower, grass and leaves are purified by washing them in water.