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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

Mazdayasnān religion, and implies the virtue of that religion to offer the sacred means of alliance with Ahura Mazda, or of self-devotion towards Him. The Pahlavi Commentary plainly tells us that the manifestation of this gift of communion with the Deity on earth was due to Zoroastrism, while every stanza of the Gâthâs extols this highest and noblest ideal of the human spirit in the pious sentiments of Zarathushtra himself (cf. Ys. XXVIII. 3, 4, 6, 7, &c.).

I translate the passage (Yasna XII. 9) literally:—

"I extol the Mazda-worshipping religion, that is far from all doubt, that levels all disputes,[1] the sacred one, the gift of communion (with God); the greatest, the best, and the purest of all religions that have existed and will exist, which is (a manifestation) of Ahura and of Zarathushtra."

Here it is impossible to conceive the idea of marriage between nearest relations in a passage

  1. ↑ Comp. S. B. E. Vol. XXI., Dr. Mill's translation: "the Faith which has no faltering utterance, the Faith that wields the felling halbert" (p. 250).
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