SPENTA MAINYU
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 'Education is not a cure for ignorance. Even educated can be ignorant.'
	YOU ARE IN DARKNESS.
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Sumerians believed that the authority to rule was sent down from 'up there' - from the supreme creators. Which means that the kings on earth were 'men of the supreme overseer.' Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian kings all declared themselves to be chosen and appointed by the gods. They acted as representatives of the gods in the rituals, and in some cases were deified after death. But in Egypt the king did not represent the god, HE WAS THE GOD (A god living on the earth among the mankind). While he lived he was called Horus (Egyptian god of light and the son of Osiris and Isis), and when dead he was Osiris, lord of the dead. Therefore a great deal of Egyptian myth is concerned with kingship and the Osiris-Horus cycle. Egyptians were preoccupied with death and afterlife very much, which lead to Osiris cult and its mythology, which also lead to mummification with its attendant myth and ritual. Another cult existed together with the Osiris cult and possibly more ancient in origin: the cult of Re the sun-god. Which also lead to a group of myths. Eventually these two cults became entwined, leading to a fusion of the myths of Osiris and Re. A third element was very important in Egyptian religion: The Nile. It had an all-enveloping aspect on the Egyptian life. The Nile was worshipped as a god and had a place in Egyptian ritual and mythology.

The myth is about the conflict between Osiris and his brother Seth. The political element of this conflict reflects the course of struggle, which ultimately made Upper and Lower Egypt a united monarchy. The agricultural element of the myth shows us that Osiris is a vegetation god. Like the Akkadian Tammuz (Dumuzi of the Sumerians) he is a dying and rising god, dies with the dying vegetation and returns to life with its rebirth. Osiris is Khent-Amenti, Lord of the underworld. He presides over the tribunal which decides the fate of the departed souls, and in this aspect he is inseparably connected with the complicated ritual of mummification. The outline of the myth of Osiris is contained in the treatise De Iside by Plutarch. According to this account Osiris was a culture hero who taught the ancient Egyptians the art of agriculture and metal-working.

THE MYTHS OF RE, THE SUN-GOD

In Egypt the cult of the sun-god occupied a far more important place than it did in the ritual and mythology of Sumer and Akkad. Shamash, (The sun-god of Akkad) was the guardian of justice. But he never became one of the triad of gods, and he was never associated with myths of creation. Re, according to tradition, was the first king of Egypt and as Atum he was the creator of the world. As its name indicates, the city of Heliopolis was the chief centre of the cult of Re, and it was probably there that cult of Osiris and that of the sun-god merged during the Old Kingdom period. The Horus-falcon that is to be seen protecting the head of the pharaoh Khafre on his statue, shows the identification of Horus with Re and the association of the kingship with Re. The mythology of Re and of Osiris have become completely blended. But there are still some elements of the solar mythology which remain distinct from the Osiris myth.

Egyptian belief system is fluid and the creation myth assumes many forms. Underneath them all lies the basic experience of the sun's action upon the slime left by the receding waters of the Nile flood.. The earliest form of the myth, modified later by the theologies of Heliopolis and Memphis, presents the sun-god Atum-Re, seated upon the primeval hillock, and bringing into existence 'the gods who are in his following'. But Atum himself is depicted as rising out of Nun, the primeval ocean (This sounds familiar! Someone must have done some stealing). In the form of the myth which belonged to Hermopolis, in Middle Egypt, the emergence of Atum was due to the activity of the Ogdoad (These were conceived of as animal forms, four snakes and four dogs, representing primeval chaos. Their names were Nun and his consort Naunet, Kuk and Kauket, Huh and Hauhet and lastly Amon and Amaunet). Atum, emerging from the waters, brings the elements of chaos into order, so that they appear in the texts as gods functioning in their proper places. In an early form of the myth, according to the Pyramid Texts, Atum is represented as fertilizing himself and producing Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture); from the union of this pair came Geb (earth-god) and Nut (sky-goddess); here the Heliopolitan theology introduced the figures of the Osirian group, and made Geb and Nut give birth to Osiris and Isis, side by side with Seth and Nephthys, thus completing the Heliopolitan Ennead.

There is another form of the myth arising from the desire of Memphis to vindicate its importance as the new capital of the first dynasties of Egypt. Ptah was the local god of Memphis, and the Memphite Theology, as the document which contains this form of the myth is usually called, transformed the Heliopolitan Ennead by giving the primacy in the activity of creation to Ptah. In the part of the Memphite Theology which concerns creation, Ptah is equated with Nun, the primeval ocean, and is presented as bringing Atum and all the gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead into existence by his divine word (Here it is again! The power of the word). What might be called the creed of the Memphite Theology is briefly summarized in the following passage of the text:

'Heart' and 'tongue' in Egyptian thinking : The heart and tongue represent thought and speech, the attributes of the creator, and are deified as Horus and Thoth (The Moon-God of Egypt). By his thought and speech (In those days thinking-feeling was associated with heart, and a simple utterance by the supreme being was thought to be sufficient for the materialization of that thought. This heart and tongue issue could be found in Sumerians, Zoroastrianism, Mosaic belief system and Islam) Ptah brings the gods into existence, brings order out of chaos; (like Marduk) fixes the destinies (Here is another deity fixing the destinies), provides food for mankind, divides Egypt into provinces and cities, and assigns their places to the various local gods. Now hold tight!: This description of Ptah's creative activities closes with the words '..And so Ptah rested ( or was satisfiad), after he had made everything'. (Sounds familiar? Yes! The God of Moses and the Hebrews did (!) the same. And the account of creation in Genesis closes with an almost identical sentence). The identification of Ptah with Atum-Re constitutes the link between the Heliopolitan myth of Re as creator and the Memphite Theology which takes the myth as the basis for cosmological speculation of great subtlety.

The serpent Apophis is the enemy of Re. In one text Seth is the agent of victory. Refresh your memory! Marduk is the agent of the gods in the conquest of the dragon Tiamat in the Akkadian myth. In another text the gods whom Re has given birth employ their magical powers to destroy Apophis. We have an interesting parallel here with the victory of Marduk over dragon Tiamat at the Babylonian New Year Festival.

The Nile naturally occupies a large place in the mythology of Egypt. Mortuary rituals and myths of the Osiris cult, as well as the cult of Re are bound up with the myths connected to the Nile. The river was worshipped as a god under the name of Hapi. There is a famous statue of the Nile god in the Vatican Museum which represents the god reclining, holding ears of corn and a cornucopia, and surrounded by sixteen children, each a cubit high. This symbolizes the fact that if the Nile flood fell below sixteen cubits there would be famine. On a tomb at Abydos we have a representation of the two Niles bringing papyrus, lotus and various kinds of food and drink. The myth of the two Niles is contained in Akh-en-aton's famous hymn to the Aton/Aten, or Sun-disc. In this myth Aton creates two Niles, one in the underworld and another in the heavens above. Aton brings forth the underworld Nile to sustain the people of Egypt. The purpose of the heavenly Nile is to provide water to the foreign peoples. But the most important and significant aspect of the myths related to the river Nile is the one associated with the Osiris myth. In a hymn to Osiris Rameses IV says 'You are the Nile, gods and men live from your outflow.' One of the elements in the Osiris myth is the drowning of Osiris and his finding by Isis. Plutarch tells us that in the month of Athyr the priests used to go down to the river by night and fill a golden vessel with sweet water. As they do so, the people present in the ceremony cry 'Osiris is found.' Both the drowning and the finding of Osiris in the Nile play an important part in the seasonal rituals of Egypt.