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 Different
cultures or groups within specific cultures sometimes disfigure the
human body in ways that are permanent. Some examples of this
are foot binding, male and female circumcision, tattooing,
scarification, head binding, neck stretching and teeth filing.
Buddhism has no specific teaching on this matter but other than
tattooing, none of these things have ever been practised in Buddhist
countries. This is probably due to Buddhism's generally respectful
attitude towards the body and its disparagement of superstitions of
the type that require disfiguring the flesh.
Some
religious and secular legal systems advocate physical disfigurement
for certain crimes, e.g., branding, amputation, castration. Buddhism
is against such drastic punishments for three reasons.
- They involve extreme cruelty which is an evil in itself and they
also have a hardening effect on the persons who carry out such
punishments and on society in general.
- The consequences of many
crimes only last for a limited period whereas physical disfigurement
lasts a lifetime and is thus disproportionate to most of the crimes
it punishes.
- All legal systems are human institutions and
thus fallible. If a person is mutilated for a crime and it is later
discovered that they were actually innocent, it is impossible to
justly compensate them.
See Capital Punishment.
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