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CHAPTER LXIV, 4-LXV, 1.
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sister of mankind', connected together, have grown from it, have attained to movement and walking upon the earth, and have advanced even to intercourse and also procreation.
7. The ground where the life of Gâyömard departed is gold, and from the other land, where the dissolution of his various members occurred, as many kinds of decorative metals flowed forth it is said.
CHAPTER LXV. 1. As to the sixty-fourth question and reply, that which you ask is thus: Where and from what did the origin of race, which they say was next-of-kin marriage (khvêtûdâ do), arise ; and from what place did it arise ?
1 The Mashyâih and Mashyâyoîh, or man and woman, of g 2, who are said to have grown up, in the course of forty years, connected together in the shape of a plant; but, after a breathing soul had entered them, they became human beings, and fifty years later they began to be the progenitors of mankind (see Bd. XV, 1-30).
• Zs. X, a states that eight kinds of metal arose from the various members of the dead Gayômard, namely, gold, silver, iron, brass, tin, lead, quicksilver, and adamant.
* Usually written khvêtûk-das (Av. hvaêtva datha, 'a giving of, or to, one's own'). It is a term applied to marriages between near relations, and is extolled as specially meritorious. For centuries past the Parsis have understood it to refer to marriages between first cousins, and all allusions to marriage between nearer relations they attribute to the practices of heretics (see Sls. XVIII, 4 n); though, like the professors of all other religions, they must admit the necessity of such a practice in the first family of mankind, as detailed in the text. Translations of other passages relating to the subject will be found in Appendix III, and it is also mentioned in Chaps. XXXVII, 82, LXXVII, 6, and LXXVIII, 19.
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