Ancient Egyptian Prayers To RA

Finally, the prayers to RA are now available in ebook format for those who wish to study Egyptian mythology and rituals.

To worship Ra, people would pray and sing hymns to help Ra overcome evil and darkness.

Here is prayer to Ra from the tomb of Shep-en-Mut (25th dynasty).

Oh RA

You God of Life, you Lord of Love,
All men live when you shine.

You are the crowned King of the Gods.
The Goddess Aset embraces you,
and enfolds you in all seasons.
Those who follow you sing to you with joy,
and they bow down their foreheads to the earth
In gratitude for your radiant blessings.

Oh RA, You the King of Truth, the Lord of Eternity,
The Prince of Everlastingness,
You Sovereign of all Gods,
You God of Life, you Creator of Eternity,
You Maker of Heaven.
All the Gods rejoice at your rising.

Oh RA, You giver of all life,
The Earth rejoices when it sees your golden rays
People who have been long dead
come forward with cries of joy
to behold your beauties every day.
You go forth each day over Heaven and Earth.

Oh RA God of Life, you Lord of Love,
All men live when you shine.

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Ancient Egyptian Prayers To RA

Were Hindu Gods worshiped by Ancient Egyptians?

The Sun King Akhenaten of Egypt (ruled 1352–1336 BC) was the son-in-law of Dasharatha, the Mitanni king of North Syria, through the queen, Kiya (the name Dasharatha is spelled Tushratta in the Hittite cuneiform script, which does not distinguish between ‘d’ and ‘t’ very well). Some have suggested that the Sanskrit original is Tvesharatha, “having splendid chariots”). Letters exchanged between Akhenaten and Dasharatha have been found in Amarna, Egypt and other evidence comes from the tombs of the period that have been discovered in excellent condition.

But how could an Indian kingdom be so far from India, near Egypt? After catastrophic earthquakes dried up the Sarasvati River around 1900 BC, many groups of Indic people started moving west. We see Kassites, a somewhat shadowy aristocracy with Indic names and worshiping Surya and the Maruts, in Western Iran about 1800 BC. They captured power in Babylon in 1600 BC, which they were to rule for over 500 years.

According to the Skandha Purana, Egypt was known as the Sancha-Dvipa continent, as mentioned in Sir Willliams Jones’s dissertation on Egypt. Both Chrysostomus (100 AD) and Clement (200 AD) mention that Indian scholars were a common sight in Alexandria, Egypt.

Egyptian scholar El Mansouri has pointed out that in both Egypt and India, the worship of cows, snakes, and rivers is common.

The terracotta mummy from Lothal vaguely resembles an Egyptian mummy and a similar terracotta mummy is also found at Mohenjo-daro. In this context, it is of interest to note that the Egyptian mummies are said to have been wrapped in Indian muslin. Characters similar to those on the Indus seals have also been found on tablets excavated from Easter Island.

The cord pattern occurring in a copper tablet in the Indus Valley and on three Egyptian seals is the most striking link between the two countries. Gordon Childe has said, “In the third millennium B.C. India was already in a position to contribute to the building up of the cultural tradition that constitutes our spiritual heritage as she notoriously has done since the time of Alexander”.

In his book, Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India, Paul William Roberts states:

“Recent research and scholarship make it increasingly possible to believe that the Vedic era was the lost civilization whose legacy the Egyptians and the Indians inherited. There must have been one. There are too many similarities between hieroglyphic texts and Vedic ones; these in turn were echoed in somewhat diluted form and in a confused fashion by the authors of Babylonian texts and the Old Testament.”

It is believed that the South Indians went to Egypt and laid the foundation of their civilization there. The Egyptians themselves had the tradition that they originally came from a land called Punt, which an historian of the West, Dr. H.R. Hall, thought referred to some part of India.

Klaus K. Klostermaier, in his book A Survey of Hinduism, says:

“For several centuries a lively commerce developed between the ancient Mediterranean world and India, particularly the ports on the Western coast. The most famous of these ports was Sopara, not far from modern Bombay, which was recently renamed Mumbai. Present day Cranganore in Kerala, identified with the ancient Muziris, claims to have had trade contacts with Ancient Egypt under Queen Hatshepzut, who sent five ships to obtain spices, as well as with ancient Israel during King Soloman’s reign.”

After Greece and later Rome conquered Egypt, it appears that the contact did not end.

Max Muller had also observed that the mythology of Egyptians is wholly founded on Vedic traditions. Eusebius, a Greek writer, has also recorded that the early Ethiopians emigrated from the river Indus and first settled in the vicinity of Egypt.

Heinrich Karl Brugsch writes in his History of Egypt that

“we have a right to more than suspect that India, eight thousand years ago, sent a colony of emigrants who carried their arts and high civilization into what is now known as Egypt.”

The Egyptians, according to their own records, came from a mysterious land on the shore of the Indian Ocean, the sacred Punt, the original home of their gods, who followed thence after their people, who had abandoned them to the valley of the Nile, led by Amon, Hor and Hathor. This region was the Egyptian “Land of the Gods,” Pa-Nuter, in old Egyptian, or Holyland, and now proved beyond any doubt to have been quite a different place from the Holyland of Sinai. By the pictorial hieroglyphic inscription found on the walls of the temple of Queen Haslitop at Der-el-Babri, we see that this Punt can be no other than India. For a very long time, the Egyptians traded with their former homes, and the references they make here to the names of the Princes of Punt and its fauna and flora, particularly the nomenclature of various precious woods found in India, leave us with hardly the slightest room for doubt that the ancient civilization of Egypt is a direct result of that of the earlier India.

Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren (1760–1842), an Egyptologist, has observed:

“It is perfectly agreeable to Hindu manners that colonies from India, i.e., Banian families, should have passed over Africa and carried with them their industry and perhaps also their religious worship. Whatever weight may be attached to Indian tradition and the express testimony of Eusebius confirming the report of migrations from the banks of the Indus into Egypt, there is certainly nothing improbable in the event itself, as a desire of gain would have formed a sufficient inducement” (Historical Researches, Heeran).

Now everyone agrees that the Hindus colonized Ethiopia. Sir William Jones says:

“Ethiopia and Hindustan were possessed or colonized by the same extraordinary race” (Asiatic Researches – volume I).

Philostratus introduces the Brahman Iarchus by stating to his auditor that the Ethiopians were originally an Indian race compelled to leave India for the impurity contracted by slaying a certain monarch to whom they owed allegiance.

There is evidence to suggest contact between the two from around BCE 3000, with the findings of Indian muslin, cotton and coriander in Egypt. In about the third century BC, during the time of Ptolemy Euergetes, an Indian sailor was found shipwrecked on the coast of the Red Sea. He was taken to Alexandria,A where, in exchange for hospitality, he agreed to show the ptolemy’s men a direct sea route to India across the Indian Ocean. Thus began a most profitable period of contact between these two nations. During Emperor Ashoka’s reign, ambassadors were exchanged. Contact continued until Egypt came under Roman law. After a short hiatus, renewed ventures were undertaken, and now the bigger and more powerful markets of Rome are clamoring for goods. Although trade was the reason for exchange, many ideas that influenced each other’s art and iconography also passed back and forth. There is a large body of evidence that documents the close relationships between these two countries. There has always been evidence to suggest indirect means of contact between these two.

There was intimate relations between India and Egypt. It is pointed out that in the processions of Ptolemy Philadelphus (265-246 BCE) were to be seen Indian women, Indian hunting dogs, Indian cows, and Indian spices.

According to the Jewish chronicles, there was a sea voyage to the East in the time of Soloman (circa 800 BC), and many articles were brought from there. The use of the Indian names for merchandise raises a strong presumption in favour of their Indian origin. The word ‘sindhu’ found in the library of Assurbanipal, is used in the sense of Indian cotton. The Hebrew karpas is derived from the Sanskrit karpassa.

The Boghzkoi inscriptions of the 14th century BC contain the names of such deities as Mitra, Varuna, Indra etc. These names indicate that there was a very close contact between India and Western Asia before the 14th century BC.

Gustav Oppert (1836-1908) born in Germany, taught Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the Presidency College, Madras for 21 years. He wrote a book, Die Gottheiten der Indier, in 1905. In his book Oppert discussed the chief gods of the Aryans and he compares Aditi with Egyptian Isis and the Babylonian Ea. We are not completely in the dark on the question of Indian influence on Greece. Speaking of yogic practices in the West, Professor Sir Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), British archaeologist and Egyptologist, author of Egypt and Israel(1911) observes:

“The presence of a large body of Indian troops in the Persian army in Greece in 480 BC shows how far west the Indian connections were carried; and the discovery of modeled heads of Indians at Memphis, of about the fifth century BC shows that Indians were living there for trade”.

He feels that the doctrine of rebirth, favoured by keeping all bodily senses in abeyance, and brought to pass by driving out the twelve inner torments by their antitheses, was accepted in Egypt under the Indian influence.

Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bissing (1873-1956) wrote:

“The land of Punt in the Egyptian ethnological traditions has been identified by the scholars with the Malabar coast of Deccan. From this land ebony, and other rich woods, incense, balsam, precious metals, etc. used to be imported into Egypt.” (Prehistoricsche Topfen aus Indien and Aegypten).

A cylinder seal of about 2,000 BC bearing cuneiform inscriptions and images of Chaldean deities has been unearthed in Central India. In southern India, a Babylonian sarcophagus has been found.

The brightest evidence of India’s direct relations with Egypt is, however, preserved in Mauryan Emperor Ashok’s thirteenth rock edict, inscribed in the early decades of the third century BC. In it, Emperor Ashoka refers to his contacts with Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 BC) in connection with the expansion of his policy of the propagation of the law (dharma). In the Ashokan records, Ptolemy II is referred to as Turamaya. There can be little doubt that official embassies were exchanged between the Mauryan court and that of Ptolemy II. Pliny names the Egyptian ambassador of Ptolemy II to India as Dionysius.

Ashoka, in his second rock edict, refers to the philanthropic activities undertaken by himself. He records that he had made arrangements for the medical treatment of men and animals in the territories of his own empire as well as in the region ruled by Antiochus Theos II of Syria (260-246 BC) and its neighbouring kingdoms, which also included Egypt.

Interestingly, it is stated that the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy IV, Philopator, lined a part of his yacht with Indian stones. The presence of Indians in Egypt in the third century BC has been attested by Athenaeus who observes that the processions of Ptolemy II Philadelphus also included women, cows, and hunting dogs from India.

Ancient Egyptian Prayers For Protection

The ancient Egyptians made many prayers to Ra, the Sun God. These prayers were said to Ra and were written on papyrus scrolls.

Some of these prayers were for protection from disease and evil spirits. A scorpion bite victim received one prayer to heal them. Another prayer was said to make someone stronger in battle so that they could defeat their enemies.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Ra was the sun god, and they worshipped him as the creator of all things. He created himself out of nothing, according to Egyptian myth, and he was a force of nature that could not be controlled.

The Egyptians also believed that Ra created humans out of his sweat, which is why they were called children of Ra. They believed that Ra had two aspects: one was benevolent and good, while the other was malevolent and evil.

Ra was also associated with Horus—the Egyptian god who represented power and authority—and so many people would pray to Horus when they wanted their prayers to reach Ra. To ensure that Ra heard the worshippers’ prayers, the priests would also make sacrifices on their behalf.

O Ra, you are the sun and the eye of every god. You give light to the earth and you illuminate our bodies. You make all things grow. You are a great god, who brings all good things to us and helps us in our need.

Ra, you are the creator of life and breath. You are the source of all things. You give health to all people, animals, birds and fish. We praise you for your kindness towards us.

To Ra, the sun god, who sits on his throne in the sky, I sing praises.

I have made a bed for you in your shrine, O Ra. May it be cool and pleasant for you, as you are cool and pleasant to me. May it be moistened with water from the sky by day, and may dew fall on it by night. May there be given to me an abode where rest is secured, and may the gods who love me not suffer injury thereby. Let them furnish it with food in abundance; let them bring to me cakes and ale that they have made; let them give to me the meat of birds that they have killed. May they bring to me wine of grapes that they have pressed out; may they cause my heart to be glad with their beer! May they make ready for me a table spread with offerings! May Thoth write therein for me what shall be good for my soul after its departure hence!

Dear Ra,

Greetings! We hope you are well. We wanted to let you know that we’re doing great, and we’d love to hear from you.

We don’t know if you’re still around, or if there’s any way for us to contact you, but we thought it would be nice to send this letter out into the universe and hope that maybe one day it will reach your ears.

So we’ll just say hi, and hope that everything is going well in your world as well. We’ve been staying busy with work and school lately—we’re so busy that sometimes it feels like our days are packed with more than 24 hours! But we’re having fun and learning new things every day. It’s been great having our friends back in town for the summer—we get together almost every day for lunch at least once or twice a week, which makes everything feel less stressful somehow.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know all about what’s going on with us these days! Maybe write us back when you can? It would be great if we could stay connected somehow…