Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/72

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IN OLD IRÂN.
57

Avestâ, that in Vendidâd VIII. is so difficult and obscure, that almost all the European translators have failed to discern any definite sense in it. Even the Pahlavi does not help us here, because of the mere transliteration of the Avestâ words. What is most important to be considered is Yasna XII. 9, (Sp. s. XIII. 28), a passage in which Dr. Spiegel and several German savants who follow his opinion, seem to discover traces of the precept of consanguineous marriage (vide Geiger, Ostîrânische Kultur, p. 246; Justi, Altbaktrisch, s. r.; Noeldeke; Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XVIII., s. v. Persia; Geldner Metrick, s. v.). I have already remarked upon this passage in the first volume of my English translation of Dr. Geiger's Ostîrânische Kultur (p. 66, note), and I beg to repeat that there is not the slightest indication that the passage in question has any reference to conjugal union of any kind; but on the contrary, the term Qaêtvadatha agreeing with the noun Daêna, 'religion,' in case, number and gender, is evidently one of the epithets applied to the

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