The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.33
The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.33
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- English
c18.33
² Strabo, xv, 69; Herodotus, ix, 110. The fact is mentioned by Herodotus in connexion with the horrible story of the wife of Masistes. As the Persian hair-washing festival was celebrated on the king’s birthday, the Indian imitation presumably was celebrated on the same occasion (‘Persian Influence on Maurya India’, *Ind. Ant.*, 1905, p. 201). The shaven heads, now favoured by most Hindus, were not fashionable in ancient India. The Indians, we are told, ‘frequently comb, but seldom cut, the hair of their head. The beard of the chin they never cut at all, but they shave off the hair from the rest of the face, so that it looks polished’ (Curtius, viii, 9).