• The Egyptian doctrine of the soul is one of the most important, as it is the most ancient, for this nation appears to have been the first to declare that the soul was immortal. The genesis of the soul itself, however, is not defined by the monuments, although the existence of a cosmic soul, from which the others proceeded, is mentioned by ancient authors. The following may be gathered from a comparison of the papyri and monuments with the traditions handed down by the classical writers:—The soul itself, once separated from the cosmic or mundane soul, was supposed to undergo numerous transmigrations, passing from one animated body to another till its cyt le of existence was fulfilled. The soul was considered to be essentially distinct from the body, and only connected with it through the link of life. It was represented in the hieroglyphs by several signs, as a basket of fire, a heron, a hawk with a human face, and a ram. Its nature was divine, but after death it passed to the great judgment in the ball of the two truths, where it was tried before Osiris and the forty-two assessors or demons of the dead, whose verdict determined its future destiny. This depended upon the sins it had perpetrated during life, and which more or less interfered with its transmigration through the necessary cycle of existence till its ultimate union with the deity, tion into the Egyptian heaven. In the judgment it was accused by the enemy or accuser; and after the judgment it was either devoured or annihilated, passed to the region of the Egyptian hell, or to the place of the metempsychosis, from which it entered some body of man or animal on the point of entering into existence. The great desire of the dying, indeed was, that his soul should pass off the earth, its detention here preventing its ascent to the moon or heaven. The souls of the wicked passed into the Egyptian hades, which the sun was supposed to traverse during the hours of the night. There they were subjected to punishments of a corporeal rather than spiritual nature—burned in brasiers. plunged into streams, kept in utter darkness, and deprived of the presence of the sun-god, uttering fearful howls and wails in the prisons within which they were confined. After the passing of the great judgment the soul underwent a
series of transformations and adventures in the future state. It was justified,. as Osiris had been, against the accusations laid to its charge by evil spirits. It assumed the form of a hawk, heron, swallow, and of a snake with a human head—that of the cosmic soul. In the fields of the Ash-en-ru, or Ahlu, the Egyptian Elysium, it sowed and reaped the harvest of gigantic grain which grew in that happy plain. It ascended the malehen, or mystical bark, and rowed through the winding of the celestial Nile, passed the fiery caldron of the hades. revisited the body, entered the boat of the sun, and passed through different regions of the Egyptian hell, in which the damned were detained, arrivin at last at the manifestation to light. To preserve the body: in order that the soul might revisit and probably reanimate it at a future period. not only was it em balmed with the greakest care, but amulets were attached to it which were sup posed to have the power of retaining the vital warmth. and of protecting it from destruction or decay. The period after which the sold was supposed to enter again into a human body was 3,000 years. during which it transmigrated through other orders of animated nature. The principal dogmas, indeed, of the soul among these people were its creation or emanation from the cosmic soul. its transmiarations. and its final reception into heaven. where it lived in the boat of the sun, and traversed the liquid ether in company with that luminary. The Pythagorean and Platonic schools seem to have drawn extensively from Egyptian sources in regard to the nature and des tiny of the soul. The Brahmanical and Buddhistic notions of the soul have also much in common with the Egyptian. See BUDDHISM, TRANSMIGRATION.—Herodot. ii. 23; Plu tarch, De kid. c. 29; Hermes, Claris; Prichard, Egypt. Mythol.; Rheinisch, Denkat. in Miramar (Wien, 1865); Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871).