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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

whatever with each other. Accordingly, it is permissible to assume that the ambiguous passages adduced by Dr. West, as seeming to allude directly or indirectly to next-of-kin marriage, will bear quite another meaning from a still closer research than the first efforts of the learned translator seem to have benefited by. I think, therefore, it is as reasonable as appropriate to defer for the present any attempt on my part to give a definite translation of any of these extensive passages which are acknowledged by Dr. West himself to be obscure and difficult (S. B. E., Vol. V., p. 339), contenting myself with giving briefly what remarks I have to make upon them.

One of these obscure passages constitutes the 80th Chapter in the 3rd Book of the Dinkard. It is very extensive, and contains a long controversy between a Zoroastrian and a Jew,[1] concerning the

  1. ↑ The antagonism between the religious beliefs of the early Jews and those of the Mazdayasna is well known to the Dinkard, the Maînôgî-khirad, the Shdyast-Lâ-Shâyast, and the Shikand-Gûmânîk-Vizâr. The Maînôg-î-khirad records the destruction of Jerusalem by Kai Lohrasp and the pre-
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