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CHAPTER XVI, I-XVII, I.
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nourishes him, as all milk arises from the seed of the males, and the blood is that of the females.
6. These four things, they say, are male, and these female: the sky, metal, wind, and fire are male, and are never otherwise; the water, earth, plants, and fish are female, and are never otherwise; the remaining creation consists of male and female.
7. As regards the fish1 it says that, at the time of excitement, they go forwards and come back in the water, two and two, the length of a mile (hâsar), which is one-fourth of a league (parasang), in the running water; in that coming and going they then rub their bodies together, and a kind of sweat drops out betwixt them, and both become pregnant.
CHAPTER XVII.
1. On the nature of fire it says in revelation, that fire is produced of five kinds, namely, the fire Berezi-savang 2, the fire which shoots up before Aûharmazd the lord; the fire Vohu-fryan 3, the fire which is in the bodies of men and animals; the fire Urvâzist, the fire which is in plants; the fire
1 K20 has the male fish,' which is inconsistent with the preceding sentence.
• These Avesta names of the five kinds of fire are enumerated in Yas. XVII, 63-67, and the Pahlavi translation of that passage interchanges the attributes ascribed to the first and fifth in the text, thus it calls the first 'the fire of sublime benefit in connection with Varahrân (Bahrâm).' See also Selections of Zâd-sparam, XI, 1.
''The fire of the good diffuser (or offerer), that within the bodies of men' (Pahl. Yas. XVII, 64).
The fire of prosperous (or abundant) life, that within plants' (Pahl. Yas. XVII, 65).
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