Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/82

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IN OLD IRÂN.
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will there be religious persons who will preserve the Kûsti on their waist, and who will perform the Izashnê rites by holding the Barsams? and will the religion that is Khrêtûk-das continue in their family?" A little further on it says:—"The most perfectly righteous of the righteous will that person be who adheres or remains faithful to the good Mazdayasnãn religion, whereby the religion that is Kvêtûk-dasih will continue in his family." These two passages are supposed by Dr. West to be translations from the original Avesta text of the Yasht devoted to the archangel Vôhu-Manô (S. B. E., Vol. V., Part I., p. 212, note).

In a passage in the Shâyast-Lâ-Shâyast (Chap. XVIII. 4), it is again declared:—"Whosoever approximates four times to the practice of Khvêtûk-dâd will never be parted from Ahura Mazda and the Ameshaspands.

I leave it to you, gentlemen, to say what signification ought to be attached to the word Khvêtûk-dasih from its connection with the moral and

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