Budge, Ernest A. Wallis [Bearb.]: The book of the dead: the Papyrus Ani in the British Museum ; the Egyptian text with interlinear transliteration and translation, a running translation, introd. etc. ([Text]) (London, 1895)

THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

lvii

an% an% an mit - k
Live life, not shalt thou die.1

In the papyrus of Ani the deceased is represented as having come to a place The doctrine of

i r 1 1 • • 1 • 1 1 1-11 eternal life in the

remote and lar away, where there is neither air to breathe nor water to drink, but xvmth dynasty.
where he holds converse with Tmu. In answer to his question, “ How longhave I
to live ? ”3 the great god of Annu answers :—

auk er heh en heh aha en fyeh

Thou shalt exist for millions of millions of years, a period of millions of years.

In the LXXXIVth Chapter, as given in the same papyrus, the infinite duration
of the past and future existence of the soul, as well as its divine nature, is pro-
claimed by Ani in the words :—

■A M idhtS II H

nuk hsu paut ba - a pu neter ba - d pu heh

I am Shu [the god] of unformed matter. My soul is God, my soul is eternity.8

When the deceased identifies himself with Shu, he makes the period of his
existence coeval with that of Tmu-Ra, i. e., he existed before Osiris and the other
gods of his company. These two passages prove the identity of the belief in
eternal life in the XVIIIth dynasty with that in the Vth and Vlth dynasties.

But while we have this evidence of the Egyptian belief in eternal life, we are
nowhere told that man’s corruptible body will rise again; indeed, the following
extracts show that the idea prevailed that the body lay in the earth while the soul
or spirit lived in heaven.

ba ar pet sai dr ta

Soul to heaven, body to earth.4 (Vth dynasty.)

1 Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 170 (Pepi, 1. 85).

3 Q ^ 0 ^f cTi0 Plate XIX’’116 (Book of the Dead’Chapter CLXXV-)-

3 Plate XXVIII., 1. 15.

4 Recueic de Travaux, t. iv., p. 71 (1. 582).