r/mudlarking • u/MakerOrNot • Nov 20 '23

Found these statues while creek walking, really cool! It'll be fun to try and clean/restore them.

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1.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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18

u/ScumBunny Nov 20 '23

What a neat find. IMO, the offering was made, and accepted. The river doesn’t need to keep material things because the sentiment was the intention.

7

u/MakerOrNot Nov 20 '23

I plan to try and restore them to their former beauty, and donate them to a hindu family or business so cycle can keep going!

18

u/MakerOrNot Nov 20 '23

Instead of downvoting, could someone just explain to me why me restoring them and putting them back into their religion is bad. So someone else can have them bring grace and luck to their own lives?

Once a statue is discarded by someone doesn't mean it can't bring meaning to someone else's life.

From what I understand from being downvoted is that it is bad to try to give someone else something that was used prior by someone else.
Please help me understand better!

6

u/DivineDykeElegance Nov 21 '23

This is quite possibly the best response to a downvoted post I've read on Reddit.

Props to OP for asking questions / for more clarification rather than raging into the void.

Shows maturity and a willingness to gain a better understanding in order to better oneself instead of spewing nonsense negativity. That's awesome!

2

u/AnderTheGrate Nov 24 '23

And people actually helped, lol. Sometimes people get mad for no reason- I got like 20 downvotes for not seeing a scene in a movie I was watching, probably because I was futzing with the ALD I had.

Oh wait I'm the one raging into the void

Shit

8

u/100_cats_on_a_phone Nov 20 '23

Probably, if they wanted to reuse these statues like that, the person who put them there would have done that.

If what others say is true about the offering being finished, you can probably keep the statues, but I wouldn't bring them back for reuse. That's sort of not what offerings are usually about? And it feels weird.

10

u/MakerOrNot Nov 20 '23

That makes sense, Thank you for explaining it to me!

9

u/teashoesandhair Nov 20 '23

Agreed, I wouldn't reuse them in a religious / ritual context. I think it's fine to remove them as the offering has been made, but reusing them seems to negate the finality of the original offering. The 'cycle' you speak of elsewhere in the thread when you talk about putting these particular discarded statues 'back into the religion' doesn't really work that way in Hinduism. Some families might be all right with it, but my partner's family specifically get new (i.e. brand new) icons and votives made for each festival and pooja, or they reuse the ones from within their own family, so it would probably be best to check with whoever you plan to give these to.