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also of everything worldly the existence, maturing, and arrangement are due to union in proportion; water, which is female, and fire, which is male1, are accounted sister and brother in combination, and they seem as though one restrains them from Khvêtûk-das, unless, through being dissipated themselves, seed-which is progeny-arises therefrom; and owing to a mutual proportionableness of water and fire is the power in the brain, for if the water be more it rots it away, and if the fire be more it burns it away.'
This elaborate defence of Khvêtûk-das shows clearly that, at the time it was written (about a thousand years ago), that custom was understood to include actual marriages between the nearest relatives, although those between first cousins appear to be also referred to.
3
APPENDIX.
In the 195th chapter of the third book of the Dinkard we are told that the eighth of the ten admonitions, delivered to mankind by Zaratust, was this-For the sake of much terrifying of the demons, and much lodgment of the blessing of the holy in one's body, Khvêtûk-das is to be practised.' And the following chapter informs us, that 'opposed to that admonition of the righteous Zaratust, of practising Khvêtûk-das for the sake of much terrifying
1 See Dd. XCIII, 13 n.
2 Into the forms of moisture and warmth in the body. Water and fire in their ordinary state being incapable of combination.
This will be the 193rd chapter in Dastûr Peshotanji's edition, because his numbers do not commence at the beginning of the book. A similar difference will be found in the numbering of all other chapters of the third book of the Dînkard.
The technical name of Yas. LIX.
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