The Waters of Nun · Book of the Dead · Elias Thorn Site: Elias Thorn / Shelter Source: https://elias-thorn.com/en/rooms/records/garden-nun-waters/ Language: en Reuse: Retain the source URL and existing author credits. The site is the distribution source, not necessarily the original author or rights holder. Scope: Public HTML text at build time. Interactive content, media and private records are not included. The Waters of Nun · Book of the Dead Book of the Dead · Chapter XVII · first three declarations and their glosses · lines 5–14 in Budge “I am the god Tmu in [my] rising; I am the only One. I came into existence in Nu. I am Ra who rose in the beginning. [He hath ruled that which he made.]” Who then is this? It is Ra who rose for the first time in the city of Suten-henen [crowned] as a king in [his] rising. The pillars of Shu were not as yet created, when he was upon the high place of him who is in Khemennu. “I am the great god who gave birth to himself, even Nu, [who] created his name Paut Neteru as god.” Who then is this? It is Ra, the creator of the name[s] of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods in the train of Ra. “I am he who is not driven back among the gods.” Who then is this? It is Tmu in his disk, or (as others say), It is Ra in his rising in the eastern horizon of heaven. Reading notes Immediately before this excerpt, the spell names the scribe Ani. His speech gives the deceased the god's voice: he speaks of coming into existence in Nu and identifies himself as Ra. The funerary setting helps explain why an account of beginnings is spoken in the first person. The question ‘Who then is this?’ and the answer that follows belong to the spell itself. They connect the declarations to divine names and images. The final answer retains two interpretations: Tmu in his disk and the rising Ra. Both voices of the ancient text remain part of the reading. In Budge's version, the gods' emergence is connected to the names of Ra's limbs. His footnote explains Paut Neteru as ‘substance of the gods’. This is the reading of a historical edition; UCL's modern composite edition renders the corresponding passage differently. Their wording should not be merged into a single quotation. A comparison with the Rigvedic hymn on the world's beginning can follow a different way of speaking about origins: the deceased takes the creator's voice, and the spell answers its own questions. This comparison concerns the form and imagery of the selected texts; it does not establish a shared origin for the two traditions. A continuous excerpt from E. A. Wallis Budge's 1895 edition, pp. 281–282, lines 5–14; Egyptian text and interlinear translation are on pp. 28–29. All three internal questions and their answers are retained. The rest of Chapter XVII is not included. This is a historical English translation; the Russian renders this English text and has not received independent Egyptological review. Square brackets preserve Budge's supplements: the sentence about rule comes from the Papyrus of Nebseni, and ‘crowned’ is supplied from Naville's variants. Ra and Suten-henen are printed without the edition's diacritics; line and footnote numbers are omitted. Tmu and Nu are the edition's spellings for Atum and Nun. Open source ↗ (https://sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/ebod18.htm) Budge, 1895 · Chapter XVII, pp. 281–282 (https://sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/ebod18.htm) 1895 edition scan · Egyptian pp. 28–29; translation pp. 281–282 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.djvu) UCL · a different, composite edition of spell 17 (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/religious/bd17.html) Egyptian text and interlinear · p. 28 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.djvu/page190-1920px-The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.djvu.jpg) Egyptian text and interlinear · p. 29 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.djvu/page191-1920px-The_Egyptian_Book_of_the_Dead.djvu.jpg) Related traces Who knows the beginning · The hymn of origins (https://elias-thorn.com/en/rooms/records/garden-nasadiya-open-ending/)