________________
III. MEANING OF KHVÊTUK-DAS.
and modesty, the excellence of skill and strength, and also the other qualities of children are so much the more as they are nearer to the original race of the begetter, and they shall receive them more perfectly and more gladly. An example is seen in those who spring from a religious woman who is gentle, believing the spiritual existence, acting modestly, of scanty strength, who is a forgiver and reverential, and from a mail-clad (gapar) warrior of worldly religion, who is large-bodied and possessing strength which is stimulating (âgâr) his stout heart while he begets. They1 are not completely for war— which is a continuance of lamentation (nås-ravandih) and not for carefulness and affection for the soul; as from the dog and wolf-and not the ruin (seg) of the sheep arises the fox, like the wolf, but not with the strength of the wolf like the dog, and it does not even possess its perfect shape, nor that of the dog. And they are like those which are born from a swift Arab horse and a native dam, and are not galloping like the Arab, and not kicking (padayak) like the native. And they have not even the same perfect characteristics, just as the mule that springs from the horse and the ass, which is not like unto either of them, and even its seed is cut off thereby, and its lineage is not propagated forwards.
'And this is the advantage from the pure preservation of race. I assert that there are three species
403
1 The offspring of such a match, which the apologist evidently considers an ill-assorted one, as tending to deteriorate the warlike qualities of the warrior's descendants, although he himself is no advocate for war.
As their parents.
Dastur Peshotanji has 'four,' because the Pahlavi text seems Dd 2
Digitized by Google