________________
III. MEANING OF KHVÊTOK-DAS. 393 Khvêtûk-das). And through fatherhood Vohaman was cultivated by him, [that is, for the sake of the proper nurture of the creatures Khvêtûk-das was performed by him.] So she who is his daughter is acting well, [who is the fully-mindful] Spendarmad?, [that is, she did not shrink from the act of Khvêtukdas.] Shes was not deceived, [that is, she did not shrink from the act of Khvêtûk-das, because she is] an observer of everything (as regards that which is] Allharmazd's, (that is, through the religion of Adharmazd she attains to all duty and law.) The allusions to Khvêtûk-das in this passage are mere interpolations introduced by the Pahlavi translators, for the sake of recommending the practice; they have no existence in the Avesta text, but they show that the Pahlavi translators understood Khvêtak-das to
1 The Pahlavi translator seems here to understand Vohûman not as the archangel (see Dd. III, 13), but as a title 'good-minded') of the primeval man, Gâyömard, who is supposed to have been produced by Allharmazd out of the earth (compare Gen. ii. 7), represented by the female archangel Spendarmad. The term vohumano is used in Vend. XIX, 69, 76-84 for both a well-intentioned man and his clothing.
? The female archangel, a personification of the Avesta phrase spenta armaiti, 'bountiful devotion ;' she has special charge of the earth and virtuous women (see Bd. I, 26, Sls. XV, 20-24). She is called the daughter of Adharmasd, even as the fire and Vohûman are called his sons, because devotion (representing the earth), fire, and good thought are considered to be his most important creations. And, as the earth is also, metaphorically, the mother of man, and the creator Adharmazd is figuratively his father, this unfortunate combination of anthropomorphisms has induced later superstition to take these statements literally, and to quote them as a justification of marriage between father and daughter.
* This seems the most probable nominative to the verbs in this sentence, but it is by no means certain.
Digitized by Google
