The Egyptian Heaven and Hell · 94 of 96 · tr. E.A. Wallis Budge
Chapter 30 (part 1)
TWELFTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT.
II.
EASTERN VESTIBULE OF THE TUAT ACCORDING TO THE BOOK OF GATES.
The last section of the BOOK OF GATES contains representations of the Gate TESERT-BAIU, with its two doors (vol.
ii., pp.
302, 303), which lead into that portion of the sky wherein the sun rises, and of the stablishing of the Sun-god in his Boat in the sky.
This Gate has no company of gods in mummied forms to guard it, and in p.
196 front of it are two standards, or sceptres, each of which is surrounded by a human head; above that on the left is the Beetle of KHEPERA, and over the other is the Disk of TEMU.
In other words, the Gate is guarded by symbols of the rising and the setting sun.
The corridor between the walls is swept by flames as before, and a warder in mummied form guards each end of it; the one, PAI or BAI, represents the dawn, and the other, AKHEKHI, the evening.
Within the Gate are two doors, one guarded by the monster serpent SEBI, and the other by the monster serpent RERI.
At the threshold is the uraeus of NEPHTHYS, and by the lintel is the uraeus of Isis, for these goddesses guard this "Secret Gate." The god AFU-RA.
having, as we have seen, transformed himself into KHEPERA, and, by the help of the god whose operations have been described, provided himself with a new face, or disk, and new light and fire, passes through the Gate TESERT-BAIU, which marks the end of the TUAT, into the Vestibule of the world of light.
We no longer see him in the form of a ram-headed man, standing under the folds of the serpent MEHEN, but he appears as KHEPERA, i.e., as his Beetle, with the disk in front of him.
From the scene which ends the BOOK OF GATES we learn that so soon as the god passes through the Gate of TESERT-BAIU he enters the waters of Nu, the god of the primeval watery abyss of the sky.
The ministers of KHEPERA now appear with the MATET-SEKTET BOAT p.
197 which they have in readiness, and the god takes his place in it, with the gods who are to guide and propel it.
Nu then lifts the Boat up above his head, and the goddess NUT receives the Disk of the sun in her hands.
It will be noted that she stands on the head of a god whose body is bent in such a way that it forms a circle: the explanatory text shows that the god is Osiris, and that his body is the Tuat.
Thus we see that the "womb of Nut," from which the Sun-god is said to be born, lies quite close to the eastern end of the Tuat, and that it forms by itself the Vestibule which leads into the world of light.
Close to the high prow of the Boat we see (vol.
ii., p.
303) the sun's disk passing through a gap in the mountain which divides the Eastern Vestibule of the Tuat from the sky of this world; this disk is the same which we have seen NUT receive from the Beetle of KHEPERA and whilst it is traversing the gap dawn is taking place on the earth.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The transformation of the dead Sun-god into the living Khepera mirrors alchemical processes of purification and rebirth.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage explicitly links the celestial sun disk to the earthly sacred beetle rolling eggs as a type of the same principle.
The Egyptian principle of truth, balance, and right order underlying both the cosmos and human conduct; the parallel to Zoroastrian asha and Greek dike.
The Hour-goddess is named Maat-Nefer-Ra, and the journey restores the order of light after darkness.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The twelve amakhiu servants are transformed during their passage and emerge as 'rejuvenated forms of RA'.