[Buddha-l] Nakedness

[Joy Vriens]

Richard wrote:

>According to the vinaya, there was a time when Buddhist mendicants walked  
>around without clothing. The neighbors reportedly complained, so followers of  
>Gotama were required to dress modestly. 

Why would the neighbours complain? As Biardeau points out the first information we have about ancient Buddhism comes centuries after the events, is written in Pali (not the Buddha's dialect) and in a different part from the events. Were the Ceylanese at the times of the Pali canon more prudish than the people from Magadha? Weren't they used to seeing bhiksus (as Gautama's dharmasutras call sannyasins)? The people in Magadha must have been used to holy men being naked, so why all of a sudden the (semi-)nakedness became a problem, when those bhiksus became Buddhist bhiksus? 
 
>I once attended an ordination in the (admittedly highly idiosyncratic) FWBO in  
>which the person being ordained said "I came into the world naked. I will  
>enter into the spiritual life the same way." His discarded all his clothing  
>and walked barefoot in snow at a depth well beyond beyond his ankles to the  
>ordination site. The outside temperature was about -20C. After the ordination  
>he redressed. Oddly enough, he did not have a funeral several days later.  
>Indeed, he never even got the sniffles. Fortunately, his ordination attire  
>did not set a norm that others aspired to achieve. 

I hope his spiritual life continued after he had put his clothing back on. ;-)