'Sadhus went naked'

"If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred." Guess what? Indians had exalted the human form thousands of years before American poet Walt Whitman wrote I Sing the Body Electric in 1855.

"If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred." Guess what? Indians had exalted the human form thousands of years before American poet Walt Whitman wrote I Sing the Body Electric in 1855.

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This is what Dadaji had to say in an essay called 'The Naked Saints of India', originally published in the now defunct Indian magazine Values, edited by the late John Spiers:

"In some of the oldest scriptural texts of India, we find references to naked saints and sannyasins. In the Rig Veda of Vedic Aryan tradition reference is made to them but worded in such a way that shows the Brahmins did not properly understand them but were held in wonder by the spiritual and psychic powers some of them possessed.

These naked Sadhus belonged to the non-Vedic or pre-Aryan religion which flourished long before the Vedic religion was introduced into India. The scriptures of these people were known as Agamas and the same teachings were later written as Tantras...The Agamas tell us of naked sannyasins as revealing the highest expression of renunciation and suggests that he who wants nothing of the world does not want its rags either...

It is an assessment with which the Head of Delhi University's Department of Anthropology Prof. Surinder Nath, broadly agrees. "The origin of nudity in India is very old. It dates back to the Vedic period. The evidence is right there for everyone to see - there are the sculptures in Khajurao temple, the Konark temple and many more. We go back a long time. It starts from the Ashoka period where everything is depicted. In south India, there are still semi-clad Vishkanyas who promote nudity. But with time and coming of the Mughals, Indians became more restricted due to the Islamic influence. Muslims opposed exposure in any form and their attitude greatly influenced Indians. If you see 50 years back, the woman of the house wasn't supposed to show her head and had to keep it covered at all times in front of her elders; this system still prevails in traditional family set-ups and has been adopted from the Muslim invaders. This was a big change from the past when nudity had been looked upon as something sacred," he says.

Prabuddha Dasgupta, one of the country's most well known photographer who has done extensive work with nudes, says a puritanical thought process was never endemic to Indian culture. According to him: "We need to understand the basics first. What constitutes nudity? It is nakedness along with human sexuality that combines the fabric of our whole conscience. One needs to accept that. In the initial years, nudity was celebrated in a more positive light. From Kalidas in the 4th century to Khajuraho and Konark in the 13th and 14th, all the way to the Rajput miniaturists of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Indian artistic history has such explicit sexual themes in literature and art, that it has no parallel in the world. Our ancestors showed us that a natural, healthy attitude towards our bodies - sex and love - without guilt or fear, is possible, if our hearts are cleansed and restored to the relative innocence of our true human nature. But the perverted sense of social values of the Mughals destroyed everything. They were invaders and they wanted to protect women. Thereafter came the Catholics who propagated a Victorian morality that said even showing ankles was obscene. They drilled it into the locals that 'sex is bad'. As a result Indians became totally confused."