Bast

Bast as a lioness

Bast in hieroglyphs

In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelled Bastet, Baset, Ubasti, and Pasht) is an ancient feline goddess who was worshiped since the early dynastic period (ca. 3000-2700 B.C.E.).

In classical Egyptian religion, Bast was the subject of considerable institutional and popular veneration. Institutionally, she was the central figure of a nationally recognized temple cult at Per Bast (Greek: "Bubastis") and was also featured in some confessional verses of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. On the popular level, she was revered for her relationship to female fertility and childbirth, such that amulets depicting the goddess with a litter of kittens (which were thought to grant similar biological fruitfulness) are relatively common archaeological finds in Egyptian excavations.

Bast in an Egyptian Context

As an Egyptian deity, Bast belonged to a complex religious, mythological and cosmological belief system developed in the Nile river basin from earliest prehistory to 525 B.C.E. Indeed, it was during this relatively late period in Egyptian cultural development, a time when they first felt their beliefs threatened by foreigners, that many of their myths, legends and religious beliefs were first recorded. The cults within this framework, whose beliefs comprise the myths we have before us, were generally fairly localized phenomena, with different deities having the place of honor in different communities. Despite this apparently unlimited diversity, however, the gods (unlike those in many other pantheons) were relatively ill-defined. As Frankfort notes, “the Egyptian gods are imperfect as individuals. If we compare two of them … we find, not two personages, but two sets of functions and emblems. … The hymns and prayers addressed to these gods differ only in the epithets and attributes used. There is no hint that the hymns were addressed to individuals differing in character.” One reason for this was the undeniable fact that the Egyptian gods were seen as utterly immanental—they represented (and were continuous with) particular, discrete elements of the natural world. Thus, those who did develop characters and mythologies were generally quite portable, as they could retain their discrete forms without interfering with the various cults already in practice elsewhere. Also, this flexibility was what permitted the development of multipartite cults (i.e. the cult of Amun-Re, which unified the domains of Amun and Re), as the spheres of influence of these various deities were often complimentary.

The worldview engendered by ancient Egyptian religion was uniquely appropriate to (and defined by) the geographical and calendrical realities of its believer’s lives. Unlike the beliefs of the Hebrews, Mesopotamians and others within their cultural sphere, the Egyptians viewed both history and cosmology as being well ordered, cyclical and dependable. As a result, all changes were interpreted as either inconsequential deviations from the cosmic plan or cyclical transformations required by it. The major result of this perspective, in terms of the religious imagination, was to reduce the relevance of the present, as the entirety of history (when conceived of cyclically) was ultimately defined during the creation of the cosmos. The only other aporia in such an understanding is death, which seems to present a radical break with continuity. To maintain the integrity of this worldview, an intricate system of practices and beliefs (including the extensive mythic geographies of the afterlife, texts providing moral guidance (for this life and the next) and rituals designed to facilitate the transportation into the afterlife) was developed, whose primary purpose was to emphasize the unending continuation of existence. Given these two cultural foci, it is understandable that the tales recorded within this mythological corpus tend to be either creation accounts or depictions of the world of the dead and of the gods place within it.

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Mythological Accounts

Originally she was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt, and consequently depicted as a fierce lion. Indeed, her name means (female) devourer. As protectress, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the chief god, Ra, who was a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of Flame and Eye of Ra.

Later scribes sometimes named her Bastet, a variation on Bast consisting of an additional feminine suffix to the one already present, thought to have been added to emphasise pronunciation. Since Bastet would literally mean (female) of the ointment jar, Bast gradually became thought of as the goddess of perfumes, earning the title perfumed protector. In connection with this, when Anubis became the god of embalming, Bast, as goddess of ointment, came to be regarded as his mother, although this association was broken in later years, when Anubis became Nephthys' son.

This gentler characteristic, of Bast as goddess of perfumes, together with Lower Egypt's loss in the wars between Upper and Lower Egypt, led to a decrease in her ferocity. Thus, by the Middle Kingdom she was generally regarded as a domestic cat rather than a lionness. Occasionally, however, she was depicted holding a lionness mask, which hinted at suppressed ferocity. Because domestic cats tend to be tender and protective toward their offspring, Bast was also regarded as a good mother, and she was sometimes depicted with numerous kittens.

Bast as a domestic cat

As a cat/lion goddess, and protector of the lands, when, during the New Kingdom, the fierce lion god Maahes became part of Egyptian mythology, she was identified, in the Lower Kingdom, as his mother. This paralleled the identification of the fierce lion goddess Sekhmet, as his mother in the Upper Kingdom.

Historical Development of Bast's Characterization

As divine mother, and more especially as protectress, for Lower Egypt, she became strongly associated with Wadjet, the patron goddess of Lower Egypt, eventually becoming Wadjet-Bast, paralleling the similar pair of patron (Nekhbet) and lioness protector (Sekhmet) for Upper Egypt. Eventually, her position as patron and protector of Lower Egypt, lead to her being identified as the more substantial goddess Mut, whose cult had risen to power with that of Amun, and eventually being absorbed into her as Mut-Wadjet-Bast. Shortly after, Mut also absorbed the identities of the Sekhmet-Nekhbet pairing as well.

This merging of identities of similar goddesses has lead to considerable confusion, leading to some associating things such as the title Mistress of the Sistrum (more properly belonging to Hathor, who had become thought of as an aspect of Isis, as had Mut), and the idea of her as a lunar goddess (more properly an attribute of Mut). Indeed, much of this confusion occurred to subsequent generations, as the identities slowly merged, leading to the Greeks, who sometimes named her Ailuros (Greek for cat), thinking of Bast as a version of Artemis, their own moon goddess. And thus, to fit their own cosmology, to the Greeks, Bast was thought of as the sister of Horus, who they identified as Apollo (Artemis' brother), and consequently the daughter of Isis and Osiris.

Bast was originally a goddess of the sun, but later changed by the Greeks to a goddess of the moon. In Greek mythology, Bast is also known as Aelurus.

Bast in Egyptian Religion

<Bast in Book of the Dead and Pyramid texts (in the latter as Bastet and Bubastis)>

In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelled Bastet, Baset, Ubasti, and Pasht) is an ancient goddess, worshipped at least since the Second Dynasty. The centre of her cult was in Per-Bast (Bubastis in Greek), which was named after her.

Consequently, a woman who wanted children sometimes wore an amulet showing the goddess with kittens, the number of which indicated her own desired number of children.

Due to the severe disaster to the food supply that could be caused by simple vermin such as mice and rats, and their ability to fight and kill snakes, especially cobras, cats in Egypt were revered heavily, sometimes being given golden jewelry to wear, and being allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners. Consequently, as the main cat (rather than lion) deity, Bast was strongly revered as the patron of cats, and thus it was in the temple at Per-Bast that dead (and mummified) cats were brought for burial. Over 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast's temple at Per-Bast was excavated.

References

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External links

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Bubastis

• Bast: Feline Goddess Revered Throughout Egyptian History - retrieved July 21, 2007
• Encyclopedia Mythica: Bast - retrieved July 21, 2007
• Per-Bast.org: The Domain of Bast - retrieved July 21, 2007

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