Analysis: "A Hymn of Praise to Ra When He Riseth"

Date: c. 1240 BCE

Geographic Region: Egypt

Author: Unknown

Translator: E. A. Wallis Budge

Summary Overview

The selection “A Hymn of Praise to Ra When He Riseth in the Eastern Part of Heaven” represents a prayer to the Egyptian god Ra, also known as Re and later as Amun-Ra and Amun-Re. Ancient Egyptian religion, or mythology, comprises a pantheon of gods and goddesses, who evolved and changed over time. Ra, the sun god, came to be considered the creator god, or king of the gods, from whom the other gods emerged. Only the primordial elements, such as Nun, who signified a watery darkness, preceded Ra. Though Egyptian mythologies, and modern interpretations of them, have changed over time, it is widely held that Ra emerged from the chaos of Nun to birth the other deities and the rest of creation. Incarnate as the rising and setting sun, Ra journeyed across the sky in a boat each day, sinking below the horizon to travel the underworld, or realm of the dead, each night. Ancient Egyptians about to embark on their own journeys into death would have appealed to Ra to ride in his boat. As such, this hymn prepares the spirits of the dead to set forth into the afterlife.

Defining Moment

The “Hymn of Praise to Ra” is one of many spells or incantations that appear in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This “book” is really a broad collection of hymns (or prayers), spells, and instructions to guide the spirits of the dead into the afterlife; individual versions varied somewhat in what was included. Versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, written on papyrus scrolls, were included in the tombs of pharaohs, nobles, priests, and other high-ranking individuals.

Historians believe that approximately two hundred chapters of the book were recorded over time, but no known individual copy contains all of the known chapters. Similarly, many of the spells and other entries predate the earliest known versions of the book, which were developed between 1700 and 1600 BCE. The oldest known texts incorporated into the book, called the “Pyramid Texts,” date to about 2400 BCE and were carved into the walls of the tombs of pharaohs.

Author Biography and Document Information

The version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in which this translation of the “Hymn of Praise to Ra” appears is called the Papyrus of Ani, set down around 1240 BCE, during the Egyptian New Kingdom. The papyrus (a document named for the paper-like material on which it was written) was created for a scribe known as Ani, who lived in the city of Thebes in Upper Egypt. As individual copies of the Book of the Dead were personalized to guide their bearers, images within the scroll feature both Ani and his wife as they embark on their journey to the afterlife. Scribes such as Ani were the masters of hieroglyphics (the ancient Egyptian writing system) and, therefore, held an esteemed position in ancient Egyptian society, as most people did not learn to read and write. Thus, scribes were among those with privileged access to such spiritual guidance.

This translation of the document, the earliest in English, is by E. A. Wallis Budge, an Egyptologist who worked for the British Museum. During his tenure there, in 1888, he obtained the Papyrus of Ani for the museum's collection and translated the text, which was first published in 1890 and then appeared in subsequent revised editions. This relatively early translation is what accounts for the use of older English stylings, such as “thou” and “thy” instead of “you” and “your,” which had fallen out of everyday use by the late nineteenth century, but were still standard in sacred texts, such as the Bible.

Document Analysis

The “Hymn of Praise to Ra” is both praise and prayer. It appears in the opening chapters of Ani's Book of the Dead because it is in these early chapters that the spirit of the deceased prepares to make his journey into the afterlife.

The hymn opens with an introduction of the scribe as Osiris Ani and with an invocation of Ra as “Khepera the creator of the gods.” In Egyptian myth, the god Khepera was seen as a manifestation of Ra (who takes many forms) as the rising sun. In this form, Ra is depicted with a human body and the head of a scarab beetle. Just as the scarab rolls a ball of dung along the ground, Ra as Khepera rolls the sun across the sky. Ra is also invoked in the line, “Thou risest up in the sky, illumining thy mother, thou art seated on thy throne as the king of gods.” Ra's mother, Nut, is the sky goddess, and though Nut was said to have first emerged from Ra, Egyptian myth holds that Nut births the sun god Ra anew each day; hence the reference to Nut as mother.

The middle of the hymn begins to forge the connection between praise and prayer by elaborating on the mythology of Ra as well as the mythology of the afterlife, beginning with the allusion to Manu and Maat. Manu refers to the mythological mountain in the west upon which the sun (Ra) sets each night. Maat refers to principle of order and justice, personified as a goddess. The rising and the setting of the sun each day maintains order in the world of creation. The hymn calls on Ra to observe Ani's ka, or soul, as he speaks before Osiris. The next lines greet those “gods of the House of the Soul,” or the underworld, where the ka of the deceased must appear for judgment. Here, Ani gives praise and thanks, on behalf of these other gods, to Ra as the giver of “Life, Strength, and Health.” Ra is referred to here and elsewhere as appearing in a boat, the vehicle in which he was believed to make his passage through the sky each day and through the underworld each night. The boat was a significant symbol in Egyptian life, as the ancient Egyptians depended on the Nile River for both travel and mainstays of life, such as food. The text then references Maat, the goddess of truth and justice, and Thoth, the god of knowledge and of scribes, as setting Ra's course. These two (who were often seen as husband and wife) were commonly depicted as standing on either side of Ra in his boat.

Ani next lauds Ra's defeat of the serpent known as Apep (along with his helper Sebau), a demon of chaos and the ancient enemy of Ra. Each night, before he may return from the underworld to the sky, Ra must defeat and banish Apep. Through this daily and nightly ritual journey, Ra restores order (Maat) to the world. In gratitude for each new sunrise, the hymn states, “The gods rejoice when they see Ra crowned upon his throne, and when his beams flood the world with light.” Ani again reviews the cycle of the sun god's journey, and then implores, “O be thou at peace with me. Let me gaze upon thy beauties. Let me journey above the earth.” He goes on to appeal to Ra to take his ba—the personality aspect of his soul—on his immortal journey with the sun god.

These closing lines represent the heart of the prayer in the hymn, in which Ani builds on his praise to ask the sun god Ra for his help in reaching the underworld, the realm of Osiris, where he may stand before the god of the dead to be judged: “Let me be received in the presence of Osiris in the Land of Truth-speaking.” There, Ani's soul will speak the truth of his life and, hopefully, will be judged worthy to continue his journey into immortality.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Budge, E. A. Wallis. “The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani.” 1895. Internet Sacred Text Archive.Sacred-Texts.com, n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2015. <http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/>.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. Egyptian Ideas of the Afterlife. New York: Dover, 1995. Print.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day: The Complete “Papyrus of Ani.” 3rd rev. ed. Trans. Ogden Goelet & Raymond Faulkner. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2015. Print.

“Papyrus from the Book of the Dead of Ani.” British Museum. Trustees of the British Museum, n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.

Pinch, Geraldine. Ancient Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Quirke, Stephen. The Cult of Ra: Sun-Worship in Ancient Egypt. New York: Thames, 2001. Print.