The Egyptian Afterlife
(continued - Page 5)
The Soul’s Journey
to Paradise
By Donald A. Mackenzie
Guided by the Horus falcon, the Pharaoh was led to a lake in the
midst of the " Field of Life." On this lake there was
an island, where grew a Tree of Life (the Celestial sycamore-fig)
beside a Well of Life.
The deseased and his wife are shown
receiving from the goddess Nut, in her sacred sycamore tree, the
bread and water wherewith weary travellers might be refreshed. She
must be distinguished from Nut the sky-goddess, and is often identified
with Hathor, the Lady of the West. After a coloured plate in Rosolini's
"Monumenti Civili".
There are many pictures of this wondrous Tree, symbolic of Nut,
sometimes here identified with the mother-goddess. Hathor.
That deity was sometimes shown rising from the tree, holding a
jug in one hand and cakes and fruit in the other.
Sometimes she was represented pouring out the liquid called "Water
of Life "from her jug held in one hand; the liquid falls on
the outstretched hands of the Pharaoh; from her other hand a liquid
streams down to the mouth of the soul, a man-headed bird, the "
Ba."
She might also be shown seated beside the tree, adored by the Pharaoh,
while his name was being carved or written on the trunk by the god
Thoth.
References are made in the Pyramid texts to the Celestial "
morning meal " of the Pharaoh. Not only did he partake of the
fruit of the Tree of Life and the juice of the tree and of the "Water
of Life," but of his " thousand of bread," his "thousand
of oxen," his "thousand of beer," and his "
thousand of everything whereon the god lives."
According to the Eastern cult the
soul entered the boat of the sun-god Ra, passing at night into the
Mount of the West and partaking of fresh life with him each morning
in the east. After a photograph in the Minutoli Catalogue.
Another view was that the Pharaoh entered the boat of the sun-god
Ra. Before doing so, he had to overcome his enemies and rivals.
In the sun-boat sat the scribe of Ra. The Pharaoh broke this scribe's
tablet and pen and ejected him from the boat, and then became the
companion and scribe of the god.
TOTH WELCOMES THE ROYAL NEWCOMER
Though counted as one of the gods, and even commanding their
obedience, a royal soul must be prepared to shoulder some
of the divine responsibilities, as Pharaoh on his daily
voyage with Ra, in the solar bark. Here Thoth welcomes Queen
Nefertari to her predestined home and duties among the gods
of her race. Photo by Gaddis & Self, Luxor.
In the process of time the theorising priests made the Pharaoh
displace Ra himself. Each day the Pharaoh sailed on the Celestial
Nile, which flowed from east to west. Its water was "the water
of turquoises," the turquoise being a stone sacred to the goddess
of the sky who had had her origin in water.
At sunset, the boat entered the dark Underworld (Duat or Dewat),
passing along the subterranean Nile, which had twelve hour-divisions.
The first hour was entered through a wall of " solid darkness,"
but this division and the divisions that followed were brightened
by the presence of the sun-god.
In their books the priests revelled in long and tedious descriptions
of the various hours.
The souls of the different classes of men dwelt in these, watched
over by gods. They welcomed and adored the sun-god who brought them
light. When Ra passed into the next division, the souls wept for
Osiris in the darkness and "tore their hair in sorrow."
In one division there were " pools of fire," and there
the wicked were tortured because while they lived on earth they
had been the enemies of Ra, guilty of blasphemies and of frustrating
his decrees. Some were decapitated, others were drowned in the abyss,
others were tortured in pools of boiling water or of fire, or were
constantly wounded bv malevolent demons armed with knives.
As Ra passed through the Underworld he had to overcome many enemies,
including the monstrous Apep serpent, the devourer of souls, gigantic
lizards, composite wonder-beasts, fire-spitting snakes, and so on.
The Egyptians dreaded poisonous serpents, and there are many serpent
charms in the Pyramid texts and the Book of the Dead.
On emerging from the Underworld, the sun-god and his scribe, the
Pharaoh, sailed to the "Field of Life," and were purified,
fed, and refreshed before passing again through the gates of dawn
to brighten and rule the world. This conception is as old as the
Pyramid Age, but fresh details were added from time to time in later
ages.
AFTER MANY TRIBULATIONS THE SOUL
FINDS REST AT LAST IN THE KINGDOM OF OSIRIS
Ani the scribe is here shown being introduced by ibis-headed Thoth
to the gods of the Elysian Fields, and navigating the Celestial
Nile. It was a pleasant land of fields and rivers where crops grew
taller than on earth, and there the soul would meet his ancestors
and live as he lived on earth, but in glorified form. In the upper
register the introduction takes place, while below Ani is seen ploughing,
reaping, and sowing his paradisal inheritance. From the Papyrus
of Ani, British Museum.
continued...
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