The Book of the DeadBudge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir
Religion
The Book of the Dead
Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir
Book of the dead; Death; Egypt -- Religion; Future life
How the beautified passed their time in the Kingdom of Osiris
may be seen from the pictures cut on the alabaster sarcophagus of
Seti I, now preserved in Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. Here we see them occupied in producing the celestial food on
which they and the god lived. Some are tending the wheat plants as
they grow, and others are reaping the ripe grain. In the texts that
accompany these scenes the ears of wheat are said to be the "members
of Osiris," and the wheat plant is called the maat plant. Osiris was
the Wheat-god and also the personification of Maat (i.e., Truth), and
the beautified lived upon the body of their god and ate him daily,
and the substance of him was the "Bread of Everlastingness," which
is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. The beautified are described as
"Those who have offered up incense to the gods, and whose kau (i.e.,
doubles, or persons) have been washed clean. They have been reckoned
up and they are maat (i.e., Truth) in the presence of the Great God
who destroyeth sin." Osiris says to them, "Ye are truth of truth;
rest in peace." And of them he says, "They were doers of truth whilst
they were upon earth, they did battle for their god, and they shall
be called to the enjoyment of the Land of the House of Life with
Truth. Their truth shall be reckoned to them in the presence of the
Great God who destroyeth sin." Then addressing them again Osiris says,
"Ye are beings of Truth, O ye Truths. Take ye your rest because of
what ye have done, becoming even as those who are in my following,
and who direct the House of Him whose Soul is holy. Ye shall live
there even as they live, and ye shall have dominion over the cool
waters of your land. I command that ye have your being to the limit [of
that land] with Truth and without sin." In these passages we have the
two conceptions of Osiris well illustrated. As the Wheat-god he would
satisfy those who wished for a purely material, agricultural heaven,
where hunger would be unknown and where the blessed would be able to
satisfy every physical desire and want daily; and as the God of Truth,
of whom the spiritually minded hoped to become the counterpart, he
would be their hope, and consolation, and the image of the Eternal God.
CHAPTER IX
A Short Description of the "Doors" or Chapters of the Book of the Dead.
All the great papyri of the Book of the Dead begin with a HYMN TO RA,
who from the period of the IVth dynasty was the "King of the Gods"
of Egypt. His cult was finally "established" under the Vth dynasty
when the king of Egypt began to call himself in official documents
and monuments "Son of the Sun," Sa Ra. This Hymn is supposed to be
sung by the deceased, who says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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