大唐西域記 2.20

2.20

凡遭疾病，絕粒七日。期限之中，多有痊愈；必未瘳差，方乃餌藥。藥之性類，名種不同；醫之工伎，占候有異。

Every one who falls sick fasts for seven days. During this interval many recover, but if the sickness lasts they take medicine. The character of these medicines is different, and their names also. The doctors differ in their modes of examination and treatment.
When a person dies, those who attend the funeral raise lamentable cries and weep together. They rend their garments and loosen their hair; they strike their heads and beat their breasts. There are no regulations as to dress for mourning, nor any fixed time for observing it.
There are three methods of paying the last tribute to the dead: (1) by cremation — wood being made into a pyre, the body is burnt; (2) by water — the body is thrown into deep flowing water and abandoned; (3) by desertion — the body is cast into some forest-wild, to be devoured by beasts.
When the king dies, his successor is first appointed, that he may preside at the funeral rites and fix the different points of precedence. Whilst living they give (their rulers) titles according to their character (virtue); when dead there are no posthumous titles.
In a house where there has been a death there is no eating allowed; but after the funeral they resume their usual (habits). There are no anniversaries (of the death) observed. Those who have attended a death they consider unclean; they all bathe outside the town and then enter their houses.
The old and infirm who come near to death, and those entangled in a severe sickness, who fear to linger to the end of their days, and through disgust wish to escape the troubles of life, or those who desire release from the trifling affairs of the world and its concerns (the concerns of life), these, after receiving a farewell meal at the hands of their relatives or friends, they place, amid the sounds of music, on a boat which they propel into the midst of the Ganges, where such persons drown themselves. They think thus to secure a birth among the Devas. Rarely one of these may be seen not yet dead on the borders (of the river).
The priests are not allowed to lament or cry for the dead; when a father or mother of a priest dies they recite their prayers, recounting (pledging) their obligations to them; reflecting on the past, they carefully attend to them now dead. They expect by this to increase the mysterious character of their religious merit.