On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.69

v1.c5.69

Then "to cut the hair short" was an act of filial mourning in T'ufan, but in the first foreign countries which the pilgrim reached it was the universal custom for the men, and it was done, we learn elsewhere, to set off the head.³ In Khoten, however, the hair was cut off and the face disfigured as acts of mourning at a funeral.¹ We find it recorded moreover that when the death of T'ang T'ai Tsung was announced, the barbarians sojourning at the capital expressed their sorrow by wailing, cutting off their hair, gashing? (li 裂) their faces, and cutting their ears, until the blood washed the ground.²