Dear Kumara Bhikkhu

Last week there was a program on the BBC, titled: what's the problem with nudity. One of the items presented was a genetic study about louse: head louse, crabs and clothes louse. Headlouse split off from the apelouse about 6 million years ago. Crab louse split off from the apelouse about 2,5 million years ago, (we must have lost our fur by then, creating two different biotopes on our body), clothes louse split from the head louse 250.000 years ago. (Homo Sapiens came into being about 180.000 year ago). The BBC programme developed the following theory for the development of clothes (and clothes louse):

When the brainvolume of people increased, nature solved the problem of birth by letting the babies be born very early, when they are still very helpless (compard to great apes). Fathers helped in caring for the babies. This induced monogamous relations and restricted "fooling around". Clothes helped to cover the most visible sexual parts of the body. The shame people feel when they take off their clothes helps to expres: yes, I know what I do is wrong, please dont beat me". And even in societies where people go as naked as you describe, they still feel very embarrassed if they take away that last piece of covering.
So at least the program makers think complete nakednesss is naturally experienced as shameful all around the world and in any society.
In some circumstances where people agree implicitly that they will be naked but still won't have sex, like a sauna or a naturalist beach, we can quickly get over the shame. But initially it is there, and it seems to be built-in, and for good reasons: safely raising these helpless babies in monogamous families.

How genetics might help translating pali. Who said things depend on conditions?

Honour seems a very accurate translation to me

Kind regards,

Ria

> This seems tougher. Hiri is usually translated as shame, as in hirikopina (Buddhadatta: that which arouses shyness, i.e. the male or female organ). Unless we ditch this concept. Maybe hiri as shame is a later perception (just as "atman" in the Vedic tradition has underwent drastic change in meaning through the millennia).
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> Why think of the reproductive organ is shameful? This may apply only in societies where it is covered. Those that don't cover it probably wouldn't relate it to shame at all. I've seen a picture of native men in Papua New Guinea wearing something on the penis, and I do mean just the penis, and tie the "sheath" to the waist, thus lifting it up. For them, it's seems more like an honour.
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> Ah hah.... honour. How about a sense of honour for hiri? It seems to connect with one of the meanings of honour: a woman's virtue or chastity. It's a departure of tradition, but worth considering I think.
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> So, hiri: sense of honour; ottappa, moral prudence. So,
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> Hmm... This is somewhat unusual. I seem to be suddenly "endowed" with a heighten ability to think unusually laterally recently. Maybe it has to do with having had dreamy nights in the whole of the past week. Heehee.
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> kb
>