Ba
| Ba in hieroglyphs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
b3 | ||||
 | ||||
The Ba was regarded in the Egyptian mysteries as the bearer of the distinctive soul qualities of the human personality and corresponds in anthroposophical terminology to the astral body of the human being, which is closely connected to the sentient soul. It was symbolically depicted very aptly in the form of a bird with a human head. After death, it accompanies Shut, the shadow of the human being, into the afterlife.
At the time of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the Ba was only mentioned in the tombs of the pharaohs, because at that time the sentient soul was only initially developed in most people. Only later does the ba also appear in the coffin texts of private people. One of the oldest testimonies in this regard is the conversation of a man with his Ba from the time of the 12th Dynasty (around 1900 BC). The text, which has not been completely preserved and consists of three songs, tells of the longing for a better life in the afterlife. One of the songs reads:
- Death stands before me today,
- like when a sick person gets well,
- like stepping out into the open air after being shut in.
- Death is before me today
- like the scent of myrrh,
- like sitting under a sail on a windy day.
- Death stands before me today
- like the scent of lotuses,
- like sitting on the shore of drunkenness.
- Death stands before me today
- like the drawing off of the rain,
- like a man returning home from a campaign.
- Death stands before me today,
- like when the heavens unveil themselves,
- as when a man finds the solution to a riddle.
- Death stands before me today,
- as a man longs to see his home again,
- after spending many years in captivity.[1]
At death the Ba leaves the human body to fly about freely, but could return to the body at any time, provided its form had not been destroyed by decay. It then leaves the body after death only during the day, flies away as a bird, but must return to the body every night. That is why people tried to preserve the body by mummification. In fact, the astral body was thereby more strongly bound to the earthly sphere and partly saved from its dissolution into the general astral world. Essential qualities of the earthly personality could thus be strengthened and carried over into the next incarnation. As a result, however, there was also an increasing danger that the astral body would remain as an unauthorised doppelganger and interweave itself disturbingly as a force promoting egoism in the envelope nature of the following incarnation.
Literature
- Winfried Barta: Das Gespräch eines Mannes mit seinem Ba (Papyrus Berlin 3024), Berlin 1969 [Scientific edition (transcription) with translation and commentary]
- Jan Assmann: Tod und Jenseits im Alten Ägypten, Beck, München 2001, p. 496-500. ISBN 3-406-49707-1
- K. Lehmann: Das Gespräch eines Mannes mit seinem Ba, in: Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 25 (1998), p. 207-236
- Klaus Koch: Geschichte der ägyptischen Religion, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-17-009808-X
- Hermann Kees: Totenglauben und Jenseitsvorstellungen der alten Ägypter, 2. Auflage, Berlin 1956
Weblinks
- Debate between a man tired of life and his soul
- [1]; [2]: Faksimile aus Carl Richard Lepsius: Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Tafelwerke, Band III
References
- ↑ Translated from Assmann p. 498f.
