In the long memory of the ancient Egyptians, there was no
god greater than Ra. His name, in their own tongue, meant simply “sun,” yet it
carried a weight beyond the star in the sky. Some scholars trace it further
back to an older word, one that spoke of a “creator” or “father.” Over
centuries he bore many names Re, Atum, Amun-Ra, each marking a facet of his
power.
Ra’s birth, if one can speak of a beginning for such a
being, is told in whispers of myth. In the first days there was only Nun,
the dark, boundless ocean of chaos. From its depths Ra emerged, carrying light
in his hands and order in his heart. It was he who set the stars in their
courses, who called the planets into being, who shaped gods, humans, and every
living creature. From him came the laws of nature and the mysteries of magic,
and through him the fragile balance between good and evil was set.
The Egyptians clothed his power in symbols. The sun disk,
most famously honored by Pharaoh Akhenaten, once Amenhotep IV, who renamed
himself to bear the sun’s glory, was Aton, Ra’s radiance made visible. The
falcon, swift and sharp-eyed, was his mastery of the heavens; the “Eye of Ra”
spoke of his unblinking wisdom. The scarab beetle told of his power to renew,
to bring creation back from the edge of dissolution. And the ankh, looped and
eternal, was the life he offered to his children, a life that did not end with
death.
In art, he is most often a man with the head of a falcon,
crowned with the blazing sun disk. At times he is only the falcon itself,
soaring above the earth. His reach is without limit. No god could rival him; no
realm could restrain him. Time and space bent to his will. He moved freely
through the worlds of spirit and matter, his gaze resting on all things.
His dominion was marked by cycles. The first was the simple
yet profound journey of day and night. At dawn, Ra rose in the east as Khepri,
the scarab who rolled the sun into the sky. At noon he became Ra-Horakhty, the
falcon lord at the height of his power. At sunset, as Atum, he closed the day’s
labors.
The second cycle was darker: his nightly voyage through the
Duat, the underworld. As the sun vanished from the sky, Ra entered a realm of
shadows and dangers, accompanied by loyal gods. Each night he faced Apophis,
the great serpent of chaos, who sought to swallow the light forever. In the
Hall of Ma’at, his daughter and consort weighed the hearts of the dead against
her feather of truth, sending the righteous to the Field of Reeds, where they
lived in peace with those they loved, and consigning the wicked to Ammit, the
devourer. Others met their fate in the Lake of Fire, where rebellion against
Ra’s order brought endless torment. Only the Hidden Palace, a sanctuary known
to few, offered Ra rest and renewal before he rose again at dawn.
The third cycle was the unending struggle between order and
chaos, played out in his rivalry with his brother Set. Set, envious of Ra’s
glory, sought to bring storms, floods, plagues, and war into the ordered world.
Yet Ra’s allies—Horus the warrior son, Ma’at the keeper of justice, Thoth the
wise scribe, Isis the healer, Anubis the guide of souls, and Bastet the fierce
guardian—helped him restore balance again and again.
For the Egyptians, Ra was more than a ruler of the heavens.
He was the heavens, the earth, and the unseen worlds beyond them. The Hymn to
Aton puts it in words as vast as the god himself: “He has a million forms
according to the time of day and from where he is seen; yet he is always the
same.” In their eyes, Ra was all that was, all that is, and all that will
be—the Master of the Universe.
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THE MASTER UNIVERSE