The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) · 124 of 357 · tr. E.A. Wallis Budge
Chapter 14 (part 2)
The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines of the papyrus.
2.
The god Khepera is usually represented with a beetle for a head; and the scarab, or beetle, was sacred to him.
The name means "to become, to turn, to roll," and the abstract noun kheperu may be rendered by "becomings," or "evolutions." The god was self-created, and was the father of all the other gods; men and women sprang from the tears which fell from his eyes; and the animal and vegetable worlds owed their existence to him.
Khepera is a phase of Tmu, the night-sun, at the twelfth hour of the night, when he "becomes" the rising sun or Harmachis ( i.e.
, Horus in the horizon).
He is also described as " Khepera in the morning, Ra at mid-day, and Tmu in the evening." See Lanzone, Dizionario , p.
927 ff.; Grébaut, Hymne à Ammon-Ra , p.
264, note 2; Pierret, Panthéon, pp.
74, 75; Lefébure, Traduction Comparée des Hymnes au Soleil , p.
39; De Rougé, Inscription d'Ahmés , p.
110; Archaeologia , vol.
52, p.
541 ff.; Wiedemann, Die Religion der Alten Aegypter , p.
17; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie , p.
245, etc .
3.
The goddess Nut represented the sky, and perhaps also the exact place where the sun rose.
She was the wife of Seb, the Earth-god, and gave birth to Isis, Osiris, and other gods.
One of her commonest titles is "mother of the gods." She is depicted as a woman bearing a vase upon her head, and sometimes wears the disk and horns usually characteristic of Isis and Hathor.
She was the daughter and mother of Ra.
See Lanzone, Dizionario, p.
392; Pierret, Panthéon , pp.
34, 36; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie , pp.
603-610.
4.
Manu is the name given to the mountains on the western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, wherein was situated tu Manu , "the mountain of Manu," the chief site of rock-hewn tombs.
See Brugsch, Dict.
Géog ., p.
259.
5.
Maat, "daughter of the Sun, and queen of the gods," is the personification of righteousness and truth and justice.
In many papyri she is represented as leading the deceased into the Hall of Double Maat, where his heart is to be weighed against her emblem.
She usually wears the feather, emblematic of Truth, and is called the "lady of heaven": see Lanzone, Dizionario , p.
276 (and tav.
109, where the twin-goddesses Maat are shown); Pierret, Panthéon , p.
2011.
She is sometimes represented blind-fold: see Wiedemann, Religion der alten Aegypter, p.
78.
For figures of the goddess in bronze and stone, see Nos.
380, 383, 386, II, 109, and II, 114 in the British Museum.
6 Heru-khuti , i.e.
, "Horus of the two horizons," the Harmachis of the Greeks, is the day-sun from his rising in the eastern horizon to his setting in the western horizon; for the various forms in which he is represented, see Lanzone, Dizionario , tav.
129.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text outlines a hierarchy where Khepera is the father of all other gods and the source from which humanity and nature spring.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The passage details the weighing of the heart against Maat's emblem in the Hall of Double Maat as a judgment process.
[auto] The passage is excerpted from the Book of the Dead and explicitly mentions resurrection to see Horus, indicating its function in guiding the soul through death.
The Egyptian principle of truth, balance, and right order underlying both the cosmos and human conduct; the parallel to Zoroastrian asha and Greek dike.
[auto] Note 5 explicitly defines Maat as the personification of righteousness, truth, and justice underlying cosmic and human order.