Alain Daniélou (1907-1994) was a French musicologist, historian, indologist, author, and university lecturer. Quotes from his work:

»Gods and prophets were created in the nude. All human beings were created in the nude.« (Linga Purana, I.34.13)

Nudity means a return to the primitive state.

The identification of God and mankind with nature requires nudity. David dances nude in front of the Ark of the Covenant (Samuel 6.15-16).

The true human is nude.

The instance that requires one to dress is the hypocritical, pharisaical religion of the city.

Shiva is nude, »sky-clad«.

The sage and the Shiva monks roam the world in the nude and freely.

Nudity is synonymous with freedom, virtue, truth, and health.

Jainism, the ancient atheistic religion of India and rival of Shivaism, also demands nudity from its followers. The Greeks were also familiar with the gymnosophistoi or ascetics in the nude, who arrived from India.

When the soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to follow the instructions of the Indian philosophers, they had to take off their clothes.

Nudity has something magical and sacred about it.

»Sow the seed nude, steer the cattle nude,

nude cut off the corn, if you want that in their times

Demeter's works you all complete, so that you may have every

grows up in its own time …«

(Hesiod: »Erga«, 390-395)

Source: Eugen Diederichs Publishing House, Munich, Alain Daniélou, Der Phallus [en: The phallus], ISBN 3-424-01412-5