Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/74

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IN OLD IRÂN.
59

which glorifies the virtues of a religion. Happily, my own humble conviction has been supported, with reference to the Avestâ, by Dr. E. W. West, of Munich, a scholar whose high and unrivalled attainments in Pahlavi in the European world of letters, will ever be a matter of pride to every English Orientalist. In his essay on the "Meaning of Khvêtûk-das," appended to Vol. XVIII. of Prof. M. Müller's "Sacred Books of the East," (pp. 389–430), the learned writer summarizes the result of his examination of all the passages referring to Qaêtvadatha in the Avestâ in the following manner (p. 427):—

"The term does not occur at all in the oldest part of the Avestâ, and when it is mentioned in the later portion it is noticed merely as a good work which is highly meritorious, without any allusion to its nature; only one passage (Vend. VIII. 13) indicating that both men and women can participate in it. So far, therefore, as can be ascertained from the extant fragments of the Avestâ—the only internal authority regarding the

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