Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/87

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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

Translators (Dastur Dr. Peshôtanji and Dr. West) agree, show that the term Khvêtûk-dasih is technically applied in this passage to supernatural unions, what are called the Khvêtûk-dasih between the father and the daughter, the son and the mother, the brother and the sister. We know that in the Avestâ, Spentâ Armaiti, Pahl. Spendârmat, is the female archangel, and as Ahura Mazda is called the Creator and Father of all archangels, Spendârmat is, therefore, called His daughter. Now, Spendârmat is believed to be the angel of the earth; and since from the earth God has created the first human being, Spendârmat, in the later Pahlavi writings, is alleged to have been spiritually associated with the Creator for such a mighty procreation as that of Gayômard, the first man according to Irânian cosmogony. Thus this supposed supernatural union passed into an ideal conception, and technically denoted what is called 'the Khrétûk-dasih between the father and the daughter.' Again, it is said that the seed of Gayômard fell into the mother-earth by whom

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