The ancient Egyptian doctrine of the immortality of the soulWiedemann, Alfred
Religion
The ancient Egyptian doctrine of the immortality of the soul
Wiedemann, Alfred
Eschatology, Egyptian; Immortality
[Illustration: Fig. 3.—Amenophis III. making offerings to his KA.
(_From his temple at Soleb._)[8]]
But even as early as the time of Amenophis III., about 1500 B.C.,
the Egyptians had carried the idea still further, and had completely
dissevered the Personality from the Person, the king being frequently
represented as appearing before his own Personality, which bears the
insignia of divinity, the staff of command, and the symbol of life,
the [Illustration: {H}] _ānkh_ (fig. 3). To it the king presents
offerings of every kind and prefers his petition for gifts of the gods
in exchange His Personality replies: “I give unto thee all Life, all
Stability, all Power, all Health, and all Joy (enlargement of heart);
I subdue for thee the peoples of Nubia (Khent), so that thou mayest
cut off their heads.” In bas-reliefs of the same period which represent
the birth of Amenophis III.,[9] his KA is born at the same time as the
king, and both are presented to Amen Rā, as two boys exactly alike
(fig. 4), and blessed by him. About this time the kings began to build
temples to their own Personalities, and appointed priests to them;
and from time to time the sovereign would visit his temple to implore
from himself his own protection, and still greater gifts. So long
as the king walked the earth, so long his “living KA, lord of Upper
and Lower Egypt, tarried in his dwelling, in the Abode of Splendour
([Illustration: {H}] Pa Dûat)”;[10] for his KA was himself, independent
of him, superior to him, and yet his counterpart and bound up with him.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.—The infant king, Amenophis III. and his KA,
presented to Amen Rā, the god of Thebes, by two Nile gods, and by
Horus. (_From the temple of Amenophis III., at Luxor._)[11]]
The disjunction of the Personality from the Person was not, however,
rigorously and systematically insisted upon; the two were indeed
separate, but were so far one as to come into being only through and
with each other. A man lived no longer than his KA remained with
him, and it never left him until the moment of his death. But there
was this difference in their reciprocal relations: the KA could live
without the body, but the body could not live without the KA. Yet this
does not imply that the KA was a higher, a spiritual being; it was
material in just the same way as the body itself, needing food and
drink for its well-being, and suffering hunger and thirst if these were
denied it. In this respect its lot was the common lot of Egyptian gods;
they also required bodily sustenance, and were sorely put to it if
offerings failed them and their food and drink were unsupplied.
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