On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.65

v1.c5.65

This brief and terse account of the social characteristics common to the tribes and districts between China and India presents some rather puzzling difficulties. It is too summary, and is apparently to a large extent secondhand information obtained from rather superficial observers, not derived from the author's personal experience, and it does not quite agree with the accounts given by previous writers and travellers. Thus the pilgrim states that the tribes in question had no fixed period of mourning, that is, for deceased parents, but we learn that the people of Yenki observed a mourning of seven days for their parents. Nor was it the universal custom to burn the dead; for the T'ufan people, for example, buried their dead.¹