The Book of the Dead

A alma, o coração e o nome · original

Osiris as Judge of the Dead and King of the Under World.

When Set was destroyed Osiris departed from this world to the kingdom

which the gods had given him and began to reign over the dead. He was

absolute king of this realm, just as Ra the Sun-god was absolute king

of the sky. This region of the dead, or Dead-land, is called "Tat,"

or "Tuat," but where the Egyptians thought it was situated is not

quite clear. The original home of the cult of Osiris was in the Delta,

in a city which in historic times was called Tetu by the Egyptians and

Busiris by the Greeks, and it is reasonable to assume that the Tuat,

over which Osiris ruled, was situated near this place. Wherever it

was it was not underground, and it was not originally in the sky

or even on its confines; but it was located on the borders of the

visible world, in the Outer Darkness. The Tuat was not a place of

happiness, judging from the description of it in the PER-T EM HRU,

or Book of the Dead. When Ani the scribe arrived there he said,

"What is this to which I have come? There is neither water nor air

here, its depth is unfathomable, it is as dark as the darkest night,

and men wander about here helplessly. A man cannot live here and be

satisfied, and he cannot gratify the cravings of affection" (Chapter

CLXXV). In the Tuat there was neither tree nor plant, for it was the

"land where nothing grew"; and in primitive times it was a region

of destruction and death, a place where the dead rotted and decayed,

a place of abomination, and horror and terror, and annihilation. But

in very early times, certainly in the Neolithic Period, the Egyptians

believed in some kind of a future life, and they dimly conceived that

the attainment of that life might possibly depend upon the manner of

life which those who hoped to enjoy it led here. The Egyptians "hated

death and loved life," and when the belief gained ground among them

that Osiris, the God of the Dead, had himself risen from the dead,

and had been acquitted by the gods of heaven after a searching trial,

and had the power to "make men and women to be born again," and

"to renew life" because of his truth and righteousness, they came

to regard him as the Judge as well as the God of the Dead. As time

went on, and moral and religious ideas developed among the Egyptians,

it became certain to them that only those who had satisfied Osiris

as to their truth-speaking and honest dealing upon earth could hope

for admission into his kingdom.

When the power of Osiris became predominant in the Under World, and

his fame as a just and righteous judge became well established among

the natives of Lower and Upper Egypt, it was universally believed

that after death all men would appear before him in his dread Hall of

Judgment to receive their reward or their sentence of doom. The writers

of the Pyramid Texts, more than fifty-five centuries ago, dreamed of

a time when heaven and earth and men did not exist, when the gods had

not yet been born, when death had not been created, and when anger,

speech (?), cursing and rebellion were unknown. But that time was

very remote, and long before the great fight took place between Horus

and Set, when the former lost his eye and the latter was wounded in

a vital part of his body. Meanwhile death had come into the world,

and since the religion of Osiris gave man a hope of escape from death,

and the promise of everlasting life of the peculiar kind that appealed

to the great mass of the Egyptian people, the spread of the cult of

Osiris and its ultimate triumph over all forms of religion in Egypt

were assured. Under the early dynasties the priesthood of Anu (the On

of the Bible) strove to make their Sun-god Ra pre-eminent in Egypt,

but the cult of this god never appealed to the people as a whole. It

was embraced by the Pharaohs, and their high officials, and some of

the nobles, and the official priesthood, but the reward which its

doctrine offered was not popular with the materialistic Egyptians. A

life passed in the Boat of Ra with the gods, being arrayed in light

and fed upon light, made no appeal to the ordinary folk since Osiris

offered them as a reward a life in the Field of Reeds, and the Field of

Offerings of Food, and the Field of the Grasshoppers, and everlasting

existence in a transmuted and beautified body among the resurrected

bodies of father and mother, wife and children, kinsfolk and friends.

But, as according to the cult of Ra, the wicked, the rebels, and the

blasphemers of the Sun-god suffered swift and final punishment, so

also all those who had sinned against the stern moral Law of Osiris,

and who had failed to satisfy its demands, paid the penalty without

delay. The Judgment of Ra was held at sunrise, and the wicked were

thrown into deep pits filled with fire, and their bodies, souls,

shadows and hearts were consumed forthwith. The Judgment of Osiris

took place near Abydos, probably at midnight, and a decree of swift

annihilation was passed by him on the damned. Their heads were cut

off by the headsman of Osiris, who was called Shesmu, and their

bodies dismembered and destroyed in pits of fire. There was no

eternal punishment for men, for the wicked were annihilated quickly

and completely; but inasmuch as Osiris sat in judgment and doomed the

wicked to destruction daily, the infliction of punishment never ceased.