Xwedodah
Xwedodah (
Etymology
While the Avestan term xᵛaētuuadaθa is still of ambiguous meaning and function in the Young Avestan texts, it is only later in Middle Persian that the term becomes used in its current form.[3] The earliest use of the word Xwedodah in Middle Persian in the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam.[4] The nineteenth-century qaêtvadatha style (with q instead of Avesta x) and similar writings reappear in modern literature.
The first part of the compound seems to be a "family" (or similar) of Khito (xᵛaētu), which is generally thought to derive from the "self" (xᵛaē-) with the suffix -you (-tu-), although this is not entirely straightforward . The second part, vadaθa, is nowadays generally regarded as a derivative of the verb (From * Wad-) 'resulting in marriage', related to other Iranian and Indo-European languages which refer to marriage or marriage partner (compare with ancient Indik). "Wife" Av. Vaδū; Pahlavi wayūg (Pers. Bayu) "bride"; Avestan vaδut "one who has reached the age of marriage"; Pahlavi wayūdag "bride's room".
This etymology was suggested by Carl Goldner, and accepted by Émile Benveniste and Christian Bartholomae, and became a popular opinion among Western scholars. However, there is no * vadha- to Vedic or * vada- root in the Avesta of the vadh root; in Avesta the vāδaya and upa.vāδaiia- 'lead (to marry)' and uzuuāδaiia are 'leaving the father's house'. vadh-Vedic, vad-Avestan should not be confused with vah-Avestan "to take", vaz-Avestan with the uhyá-unknown form.
Zoroastrian religious sources
Most of Pahlavi's texts are self-contained by Edward William West's comments. Brief evaluations and references include Friedrich Spiegel and standard books on Zoroastrianism, such as Boyce.
Avestan
In the
Pahlavi
Xwedodah became a more solidified doctrine in the Pahlavi/Middle Persian literature of post-Sassanian Zoroastrianism.
Non-Zoroastrian sources
There are 60 outside sources referencing Zoroastrian Persian brother-sister incest marriages come from the Greeks, Romans, Armenians, Arabians, Indians, Tibetans, and Chinese, ranging from the 5th century BC into the 15th century AD, roughly 2000 years.[1] To maintain stability over a multicultural empire, the Islamic Caliphate allowed newly conquered territory to keep their customs and practices as long as they submitted and paid their taxes.[11] Thus Zoroastrian brother-sister incest continued to persist and exist well into the Middle Ages.[12]
Greco-Roman
Greek sources such as
Jewish
Islamic
Christian
The most comprehensive reports come from Eastern Christians who lived under Persian rule, they wrote down that these were not just fictitious stories of far away people, but were indeed very real and widely practiced. Iso'bokht, the Nestorian patriarch of the Persis writes many books on this topic urging Christians and other peoples to not practice this custom.[11][1]
Greek
The common feature of non-Iranian sources is that they rarely mention the Iranians themselves, even if they do occasionally mention the majus clerics. Numerous classical sources and later authors point to the incarnation of incest in the Achaemenid monarchies of the Parthian and Sassanian dynasties. Some of the earliest Greek references to non-royal incest are those by Xanthus in his book Magica, which Clement of Alexandria quoted as saying that Magi had sex with their mothers, daughters and sisters, and that Ctesias had mentioned a brother-sister marriage. Herodotus mentions that Cambyses lived with his sister.[3]
Chinese
According to the Chinese traveller Du Huan (fl. 751–762), the religious law of Xun-xun, which refers to a non-Abrahamic religion in the middle east, likely Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism, allowed clan members to intermarry.[14] A reference can be found in the Pahlavi-Chinese bilingual tomb inscriptions in Xi'an, in which the deceased woman, from the Surin family princes, is read in Chinese as "wife" but in Pahlavi's "daughter".
See also
- Persian wedding
- Zoroastrianism
References
- ^ ISSN 0162-3095.
- OCLC 774027576.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "MARRIAGE ii. NEXT OF KIN: IN ZOROASTRIANISM – Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
Quintus Curtius Rufus, in his History of Alexander (8.2.19; comp. mid-1st cent. CE), recounts the story of the Sogdian governor Sisimithres, who married his mother and had two sons with her, remarking that parents there were allowed to have indecent intercourse (stupro coire) with their children (II, pp. 252-53; cf. Boyce and Grenet, p. 8).
- ^ ISBN 9781316658802. Retrieved 2020-04-19.
- ^ "AVESTA: YASNA: (English)". www.avesta.org. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
- ^ "AVESTA: KHORDA AVESTA (English): Frawardin Yasht (Hymn to the Guardian Angels)". www.avesta.org. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
- ^ "AVESTA: VENDIDAD (English): Chapter 8: Funerals and purification, unlawful sex". www.avesta.org. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
- ^ Skjærvø "Next-of-Kin Marriage"; Williams (ed.), The Pahlavi Rivayat, ii, 132–133, n. 4.
- ^ "DENKARD, Book 3, ch 80-81 (Sanjana, Vol 2)". www.avesta.org. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
- ^ Williams, A. V. The Pahlavi RivÄyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg Part I & II.
- ^ .
- ^ Sachau, E. (1914). Syrische Rechtsbücher. Vol. 3. Berlin: Georg Reimer.
- ISBN 978-0-415-74269-6.
- ^ Wan 2017, p. 14.
Bibliography
- Wan, Lei (2017), The First Chinese Travel Record on the Arab World