K AS A SYMBOL. It has numerous sig nifications, according to the connection in which it is used. Thus, for instance, K in chemistry stands for lcalium or potassium. In heraldry and titulary honors it stands for knight, as for example, K.B., Knight of the Bath ; K.G. Knight of the Garter. In the expression 0. K. the K stands for correct or right, in sense at least, whatever be the derivation of the expression Itself. K2 is a sign sometimes used to represent Mount Godwin-Austen; while Ka, in Egyptian mythology, represents the spirit of the dead. See KA.
KA, the spirit of the dead, the second self, which formed a very important part of the religious belief of the Egyptians. Each Egyp tian was thought to possess his own par ticular Ka, which constituted the spirit of his life in the future world where all the in habitants, whether earth-born or heaven-born, possessed each his Ka. To this rule not even the gods were exempt, the Creator of the universe and of men being as much dependent upon "his second self" as earth-born mortals. Every human being, while on earth, according to Egyptian belief, possessed two spirit beings, the Ka, which remained in the future world, and the Ba, which accompanied the body on earth and deserted it at death. The Ba was thought to be the earthly being or soul of man; and the root form of the word and its significa tion are suggestively like the form and use of the Indo-European root word for being or to be. As the Ba was the essence of life in this world, so was the Ka believed to be the essence of life in the world to come. This is why its possession could not be dispensed with even by the gods of creation. The Ba and the Ka were, therefore, both used as the symbols of being or existence, each in its own sphere. The substantive or copulative verb to be, though lacking in many languages, is a very pronounced feature of the Indo-European tongues, the race possessors of which had early highly developed the idea of the spirit or soul within the earthly body. The similarity between the root be, ex pressing existence, and the Egyptian ba, is very striking, and it becomes still more so when the comparison is made with the various forms of the root throughout all the languages of the Indo-European family. From the Sanskrit bhii it glides into ba and IA (as in Russian bit), everywhere retaining the primitive idea of ex istence. So strongly has this idea persisted that some branches of the family even to-day, as Spanish, for instance, have developed two verbs to express the English "to he." One of these expresses the idea of existence pure and simple and unlimited, except by the condition of earthly life. The second verb to he expresses a con dition that is limited and dependent upon the idea of existence, hut not forming an essential part of it. Thus, man is an animal (El hombre es tin animal) expresses a condition of man's existence throughout life, or in other words, of his being. "The man is in his house" (El
hombre (via en casa) expresses only a tem porary condition and one in no way essential to being. It is therefore expressed by the second Spanish verb to he (estar) which is purely locative in use and derivation. These two sentences bring out strongly, by contrast, idea dea of life-long existence and accidental occupation or position. Man exists all his life as an animal; but he stands (the original root sense of the verb) or is located in his house. In the second case there is none of the spiritual sense of existence, since the verb expresses sim ply location in time.
The Royal The Egyptians carried this idea of relation of time to existence to a con clusion that legitimately followed their belief in the divine character of their sovereigns. They represented their king as possessing, while on earth, both a Ba and a Ka, ever present in his person. Being of earth, the sovereign must, while on earth, possess his Ba, or second earthly person; but being, at the same time, the heaven born child and the representative upon earth of the divine power, and not having relin quished his heavenly or future-world estate, he necessarily also had to possess his Ka, without which he could not retain his future world connections. This endowing of their sovereigns by the Egyptians with the earthly and the heavenly °second self? the Ba and the Ka, throws a light on these two much-disputed terms. The Ba was the breath of earthly life; the Ka was the breath of heavenly or divine life; and the sovereign, forming the link be tween earth and heaven, between the temporal and the divine, could do so only by virtue of possessing the essential animating forces of both. Each dead person was euphemistically said to have "gone to his that is, to have died or °departed this But the sovereign, when he died, was picturesquely said to have gone with his Ka, that is, to have accompanied the Ka to the future world. This shows the popular Egyptian belief that the heavenly °sec ond self° never for a moment deserted the heaven-born sovereign, either in the future world from which he had come, or while on his earthly mission, as the heaven-sent ruler of the people. When a mortal left this earth, be he sovereign, potentate, noble, priest or com mon laborer, mechanic or tradesman, This Ba flew away, at death, as a and the departed went on to take possession of his new self,i) or Ka. With the disappearance of this earthly life, sovereign, noble and commoner were alike in possessing but one spiritual gelf. But, for all that, they were not placed on an equality in the future life; for the king, being of divine origin, returned to the society of the gods from which he had come when he ap peared upon earth. There his earthly rule was transformed into a spiritual one.