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CHAPTER XVIII, 4.
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4. Aharman exclaimed thus : 'Enter into the season-festival! if one of those present shall steal a single thing the season-festival is violated, and the affair is in accordance with thy wish; enter into the sacred feast?! if only one of those present shall chatter the sacred feast is violated, and the affair is in accordance with thy wish; but avoid next-of-kin marriage3! because I do not know a remedy for it; for whoever has gone four times near to it will not become parted from the possession of Adharmazd and the archangels *'.
creations of the sky, water, earth, vegetation, animals, and man, is a belief of later times, derived probably from a foreign source.
Reading pavan, with,' instead of barâ, 'beyond,' as in the next clause of the sentence (see p. 176, note 5).
* By the sacred feast is meant the consecration of sacred cakes, with meat-offerings and the recital of the Âfrîngâns or blessings (see Chaps. III, 32, XI, 4).
By next-of-kin marriage Parsis nowadays understand the marriage of first cousins, which they consider a specially righteous act; and the passages in Pahlavi texts, which appear to approve of marriages between brother and sister, father and daughter, and mother and son, they explain as referring to the practices of heretics (see Dastûr Péshôtan's English translation of the Dinkard, p. 96, note). How far this explanation may be correct has not been ascertained, for the passages in question are rather obscure, and have not been thoroughly examined. But it is quite conceivable that the Parsi priesthood, about the time of the Muhammadan conquest (when the practice of next-of-kin marriage was most extolled), were anxious to prevent marriages with strangers, in order to hinder conversions to the foreign faith; and that they may, therefore, have extended the range of marriage among near relations beyond the limits now approved by their descendants.
• The object of this chapter is evidently to extol the religious merit of next-of-kin marriage. A Persian version of the passage, contained in M5, fols. 54, 55, adds the following details: Therefore it is necessary to understand, that the chief next-of-kin marriage is that of a sister's daughter and brother's son; a medium
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