Journal of the American Oriental Society 132.4 (2012) 567 Avestan Haēcat ̰ .aspa-, Rigveda 4.43, and the Myth of the Divine Twins Alexander NIKOLAEV Harvard University To the memory of my teacher Leonard Herzenberg (1934–2012) Avestan Haēcat ̰ .aspa-, known from later Zoroastrian tradition as the name of an ancestor of Zaraθuštra, 1 is twice attested in the Gāthās. In Y. 46 the singer addresses several characters of the Gāthic world by name, beginning with Zaraθuštra himself and continuing in stanza 15 with haēcat ̰ .aspā spitamā ̊ ŋhō (voc. pl.), apparently a branch of Zaraθuštra’s own clan. Bartholomae interpreted the form as a genitival formation ‘descendants of H.’, derived from the name of that individual through accent shift, 2 but it seems likelier that haēcat ̰ .aspā here is simply the plural of the ancestor’s name used to designate the entire family. 3 In addition, in Y. 53.3 we learn that Zaraθuštra’s daughter Pourucistā had a propatronymic haēcat ̰ .aspānā. 4 On the basis of this evidence a personal name *hai̯čát-aću̯a- can be safely posited. 5 The irst member of this compound is clearly derived from the root of Avestan hiṇca- ti , Vedic siñcá- ti ‘pour out’. 6 This verb is used with diferent kinds of liquids and substances, including semen and urine; accordingly, Haēcat ̰ .aspa- has been translated as ‘having stud- horses’ (Justi 7 ) or as ‘having horses that urinate’ (Humbach, followed by Mayrhofer). 8 Both of these translations fail to convince. Humbach’s reference to Yt. 5.120 for a myth about the urine of the heavenly steeds does not support his argument, because the critical form mīšti which he, following Geldner, 9 translated as ‘with urine’ is extremely unclear: the con- text and etymology allow a plethora of other possibilities, including ‘with seed’, ‘by care’, It is a pleasure to thank Timothy Barnes, Jay Jasanof, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Jeremy Rau, Martin Schwartz, and Martin West, as well as Stephanie Jamison and two anonymous JAOS referees for their careful reading of an earlier version of this note and for their remarks. It goes without saying that they may or may not agree with my conclusions and no one of them is to be blamed for what I have done in response to or despite their advice. 1. Haecat ̰ asp (Pāzand) was Zaraθuštra’s great-great-grandfather according to the Iranian Bundahišn 35.52 (ed. Pakzad = IndBund 32.1) and Dēnkard 7.2.70 (ed. Molé). On Zarathuštra’s genealogy see Cereti 2002. 2. Bartholomae 1904: col. 1728. 3. Rau 2007: 60 n. 27. 4. On the patronymic suix -āna- see Rau 2007: 60–65. 5. The accent is reconstructed based on the accentuation of Vedic compounds of the bharád-vāja- type. 6. Schwartz (2006: 55, 61) has shown that Pourucistā’s patronymic is compositionally connected with instr. sg. hīcā in Y 32.14b (see also Schwartz 2009: 431). To my knowledge, the only scholar who did not derive *hai̯čát- aću̯a- from *sai̯k ‘pour out’ was Bailey (1958a: 530): he posited an Indo-Iranian root *sai̯k ‘satiate’ (hence, ‘feeding the horses’), but the evidence for this root is suspect. 7. Justi 1895: 124: ‘Springhengste besitzend’. 8. Humbach 1973: 96: ‘mit sich ergiessenden Rossen’. This interpretation was accepted by Mayrhofer (1979: 48–49) and Remmer (2006: 210 n. 210). 9. Geldner 1881: 399; 1904: 1095. Geldner, apparently, assumed that mīšti- was remade from *mīždi- (Avestan maēz, Sanskrit mih). According to de Vaan (2003: 238), Oettinger in his 1983 monographic study of Yt. 5 likewise translated mīšti as ‘mit Harnen’.