' This is the Ahunavar, or Yatha-aht-vairy6 formula (see Bd. [, 21, Zs. I, 12-19).
Il. THE NIRANG-I KUSTI. 387
good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, and
avoid all evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds;
the double knot being completed behind as the last
word of the formula is uttered.
Afterwards, bending forward and holding the
front knot of the Kusti with both hands, the person
recites the following Avesta formula : ‘Come for my
protection, O Mazda!! A Mazda-worshipper am I,
a Zarathustrian Mazda-worshipper will I profess my-
se/f, both praising and preferring z¢. I praise a well-
considered thought, I praise a well-spoken word, I
praise a well-performed deed. I praise the Mazda-
worshipping religion, expelling controversy? and
putting down attack, azd the righteous union of
kinsfolk*, which is the greatest and best and most
excellent of things that exist and will exist, which is
Ahurian azd Zarathustrian. I ascribe all good to
Ahura-mazda. Let this be the eulogy of the Mazda-
worshipping religion.’ And the reciter then repeats
the formula, ‘ Righteousness is the best good, &c.,
as before, bowing reverently, which completes the
rite.
1 What follows is from Yas. XIII, 25-29, and is the conclusion of the Mazda-worshipper’s creed.
* The meaning of the original term fraspayaokhedhram is rather uncertain, and the Pahlavi version is not easy to understand clearly ; it translates this sentence, as far as the next epithet, as follows : ‘I praise the good religion of the Mazda-worshippers, from which the disunion cast forth amd the assault put down are manifest (this is manifest from it, that it is not desirable to go to others without controversy, and with that which arises without controversy it is quite requisite to occasion controversy).’
3 This is one of the earliest references to Avaétvadatha, or marriage among next-of-kin; the passage being written in the later GAtha dialect.
Cc@2
388 APPENDIX.
During the rite the person performing it must
remain standing on the same spot, without stepping
either backwards or forwards, and must speak to no
one. Should anything compel him to speak, he must
re-commence the rite after the interruption.
Iii. Meaning of Khvetok-Das. 389
Il]. THe MeEaAninc or KuvéttK-pas or KuveittpAn.
Tuat the term Khvétik-das is applied to mar-
riages between kinsfolk is admitted by the Parsis,
but they consider that such marriages were never
contracted by their ancestors within the first degree
of relationship, because they are not so permitted
among themselves at the present day. Any state-
ments of Greek, or other foreign, writers, regarding
the marriage of Persians with their mothers, sisters,
or daughters, they believe to be simply calumnies due
to ignorance, which it is discreditable to Europeans to
quote. Such statements, they consider, may have
referred to the practices of certain heretical sects,
but never to those of the orthodox faith.
The Parsis are, no doubt, fully justified in
receiving the statements of foreign writers, re-
garding the customs of their ancestors, with proper
caution; a caution which is quite as necessary when
the statements are agreeable as when they are
disagreeable to present notions. The Greeks,
especially, had such a thorough contempt for all
foreign customs that differed from their own, that
they must have found it quite as difficult to obtain
correct information, or to form an impartial opinion.
about oriental habits as the average European finds
it at the present time. On the other hand, the
Parsis have to consider that the ancient Greek
writers, whose statements they repudiate, were neither
priests nor zealots, whose accounts of religious cus-
* See Dastfir Peshotanji’s translation of the Dinkard, p. 96, note.
390 APPENDIX.
toms might be distorted by religious prejudices, but
historians accustomed to describe facts as impartially
as their information and nationality would permit.
It is quite possible that these writers may have
assumed that such marriages were common among
the Persians, merely because they had sometimes
occurred among the Persian rulers; but such an
assumption would be as erroneous as supposing that
the marriage practices of the Israelites were similar
to those of their most famous kings, David and
Solomon, forgetting that an oriental sovereign is
usually considered to be above the law and not
subject to it.
Rejecting all statements of foreigners, as liable to
suspicion, unless confirmed by better evidence, it
seems desirable to ascertain what information can
be obtained, on this subject, from the religious books
of the Parsis themselves. This matter has hitherto
been too much neglected by those best acquainted
with the original texts, and must be considered as
only partially exhausted in the following pages.
The term Khvétik-das! is a Pahlavi transcription
of the Avesta word “vaétvadatha, ‘a giving of,
to, or by, one’s own, and is sometimes partially
translated into the form Khvétik-dad, or Khvétt-
dad, in which the syllable dad, ‘what is given, a
gift, is merely a translation of the syllable das
(Av. datha).
The Avesta word £vaétvadatha is not found in
any of the Gathas, or sacred hymns, that are still
extant and are usually considered the oldest portion
* Occasionally written Khvétfk-dat, as in Pahl. Vend. VIII, 36 (see p. 392).
Ill. MEANING OF KHVETUK-DAS. 391
of the Avesta. But its former component, Avaétu,
occurs several times therein, with the meaning ‘one’s
own, or kinsman, as distinguished from ‘friends’
and ‘slaves.’
The earliest occurrence of the complete word is
probably in Yas. XIII, 281, where it is mentioned
as follows :—‘I praise.... the righteous /vaétva-
datha, which is the greatest and best and most
excellent of things that exist and will exist, which
is Ahurian avd Zarathustrian.’ This merely implies
that AYvaétvadatha was a good work of much im- ©
portance, which is also shown by Visp. III, 18, Gah
IV, 8, and Vistasp Yt. 17, where the //vaétvadatha
(meaning the man who has accomplished that good
work) is associated with youths who are specially
righteous for other reasons. But there is nothing
in any of these passages to indicate the nature of
the good work.
In Vend. VIII, 35, 36 we are told that those who
carry the dead must afterwards wash their hair and
bodies with the urine ‘of cattle or draught oxen,
not of men or women, except the two who are
Ffivaétvadatha and //vaétvadathi, that is, male and
female performers of /Yvaétvadatha. This passage,
therefore, proves that the good work might be
accomplished by both men and women, but it does
not absolutely imply that it had any connection with
marriage.
Turning to the Pahlavi translations of these pas-
sages we find the transcription Khvétik-das, Khvé-
tik-dat, or Khvétik-dasih, with explanations which
add very little to our knowledge of the nature of
ee eee
1 See p. 387, note 3.
392 APPENDIX.
the good work. Thus, Pahl. Yas. XIII, 28 merely
states that it is ‘declared about it that it is requisite
to do»? ;? Pahl. Vistésp» Yt. 171 asserts [that iiae
duty of Khvéttik-das is said fo de the greatest good
work in the religion, that, owing to it, Aharman, the
demon of demons, is becoming hopeless, so that the
dissolution of Khvéttk-das is worthy of death ;’ and
Pahl. Vend. VIII, 36 speaks of ‘the two who are
a Khvéttik-dat man azd woman’, that is, it is done
by them.’
Another reference to Khvétik-das in the Pahlavi
translations of the Avesta occurs in Pahl. Yas.
XLIV, 4, as follows:—‘ Thus I proclaim in the
world that [which he who is Afthaymazd made his
own] best [Khvétik-das|*. By aid of righteousness
Atharymazd is aware, who created this ove*|to perform
’ The age of this Pahlavi version of the Vistasp Yast is doubtful, and it is even possible that it may have been composed in India. The only MS. of it that I have seen belongs to Dasttir JamAaspji Minochiharji, who kindly gave me a copy of it, but seemed doubtful about the age of the translation. He was aware that his MS. was written some forty years ago, but he did not know from what MS. it was copied. ‘This version is, however, mentioned in the list of Pahlavi works given in the introduction to Dastir Peshotanji’s Pahlavi Grammar, pp. 18, 31, so that another MS. of the Pahlavi text probably exists in the library of the high-priest of the Parsis in Bombay.
* Or, perhaps, ‘man azd wife ;’ as gabr4, ‘man,’ is occasionally used for ‘husband, though shfii is the usual word, and nésman means both ‘woman’ and ‘ wife.’
* Written Khvétvadas or Khvétfidas in the very old MS. of Dastir Jamaspji Minochiharji, the text of which is followed in this translation. ‘The phrases in brackets have no equivalents in the original Avesta text, and, therefore, merely represent the opinions of the Pahlavi translators.
* Spendaymad apparently, as indicated by the sequel.
Ill. MEANING OF KHVETOK-DAS. 393
Khvétik-das}|. And through fatherhood Vohiman ?
was cultivated by him, [that is, for the sake of the
proper nurture of the creatures Khvétik-das was
performed by him.] So she who is Zzs daughter is
acting well, [who is the fully-mindful] Spendavmad?,
[that is, she did not shrink from the act of Khvétik-
das.| She*® was not deceived, [that is, she did not
shrink from the act of Khvétik-das, because se is|
an observer of everything [as regards that which is]
Atharmazd’s, [that is, through the religion of Ad-
harmazd she attains to all duty and law.]’ The
allusions to Khvétik-das in this passage are mere
interpolations introduced by the Pahlavi translators,
for the sake of recommending the practice ; they have
no existence in the Avesta text, but they show that
the Pahlavi translators understood Khvéttik-das to
' The Pahlavi translator seems here to understand Vohtiman not as the archangel (see Dd. III, 13), but as a title (‘ good-minded’) of the primeval man, Gaydmard, who is supposed to have been pro- duced by Afharmazd out of the earth (compare Gen. ii. 7), repre- sented by the female archangel Spendarmad. The term vohu- mano is used in Vend. XIX, 69, 76-84 for both a well-intentioned man and his clothing.
* The female archangel, a personification of the Avesta phrase spemta armaiti, ‘bountiful devotion ;’ she has special charge of the earth and virtuous women (see Bd. I, 26, Sls. XV, 20-24). She is called the daughter of Afiharmazd, even as the fire and Vohfiman are called his sons, because devotion (representing the earth), fire, and good thought are considered to be his most im- portant creations. And, as the earth is also, metaphorically, the mother of man, and the creator Afiharmazd is figuratively his father, this unfortunate combination of anthropomorphisms has induced later superstition to take these statements literally, and to quote them as a justification of marriage between father and daughter.
* This seems the most probable nominative to the verbs in this sentence, but it is by no means certain.
394 APPENDIX.
refer to such relationship as that of father and
daughter, as will appear more clearly from further
allusions to the same circumstances in passages to
be quoted hereafter’. Regarding the age of the
Pahlavi translation of the Yasna we only know for
certain that it existed in its present form a thousand
years ago, because a passage is quoted from it by
Zad-sparam, brother of the author of the Dadistan-i
Dinik and Epistles of Mantsihar, in his Selections?,
and we know that he was living in a. p. 881% But
it was probably revised for the last time as early as
the reign of Khasr6é Néshirvan (a. D. 531-579), when
the Pahlavi Vendidad was also finally revised‘.
The Pahlavi versions of the lost Nasks must have
been nearly of the same age as those of the extant
Avesta, but of the contents of these versions we
possess only certain statements of later writers.
According to some of the modern Persian state-
ments the Daibasriged Nask contained many details
about Khvétdik-das, but this is contradicted by the
long account of its contents given in the eighth
book of the Dinkavd, which was written more than
a thousand years ago®, and in which Khvétik-das
is not once noticed. The practice is, however, men-
tioned several times in the Dinkard, as an important
good work noticed in the Nasks, but no details are
given, except in the following passages from the
ninth book :—
First, regarding the latter part of the eighteenth
fargard of the Varastmansar Nask :—‘ And this, too,
1 See pp. 396, 401, 416. 4. SeeiZs... View:
° See Epa iar aats * See Ep. I, iv, 17, note.
* This is proved by the long quotation from Dk. VI contained in Dd. XCIV, 1-11.
Ill. MEANING OF KUVETOK-DAS. 395
that thereupon they shall excite a brother avd sister
with mutual desire, so that they shall perform
Kfivéttik-das with unanimity, and before midday are
generated a radiance which is sublime, centred in
the face, and peeping glances (vénik6 Alfis); and
they make the radiance, whzch is openly manifest,
grow up in altitude the height of three spears of a
length of three reeds each’; and after midday they
have learned expulsion (ranakih?), azd shall re-
nounce the fiend who is before the destroyer. This
is clearly an allusion to the Khvéttik-das of brother
and sister, as it can hardly be considered as merely
referring to the arrangement of marriages between
their children.
Second, regarding the earlier part of the fourteenth
fargard of the Baké Nask :—‘ And this, too, that the
performance of whatever would be a causer of pro-
creation for the doers of actions is extolled as the
perfect custom of the first Khvétik-das; because
causing the procreation of the doers of actions is the
fatherhood of mankind, the proper fatherhood of
mankind is through the proper production of pro-
geny, the proper production of progeny is the culti-
vation of progeny in one’s own with the inclinations
(khimiha) of a first wish*, and the cultivation of
progeny in one’s own is Khvétdk-das. And he who
extols the fatherhood of mankind, when 7/ 7s a causer
of the procreation of the doers of actions, has also
extolled Khvéttik-das. And this, too, that the proper
nurture for the creatures, by him whose wish is for
' A height of about 42 English feet (see Dd. XLIII, 5).
? That is, the capability of expelling the fiends that try to take
possession of man,
' Reading gain (=k4m), but it may be dim, ‘ creature.’
