Ba= Garuda in Egypt
Eagle in Hinduism — 2; New Explanation to Garuda Purana Reading (Post No.13,068)
Date uploaded in London – – 6 March 2024
Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com
Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge.
this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.
tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com
https://www.pustaka.co.in/home/author/london-swaminathan
xxxx
Thyself from far I recognized in spirit,–a Bird that from below flew through the heaven.
I saw thy head still soaring, striving upward by paths unsoiled by dust, pleasant to travel. Rig Veda 1-163-6
Throughout the Rig Veda, the oldest book in the world, Eagle (Garuda, Syena, Suparna, Grdhra= falcon, hawk, vulture, osprey etc) is associated with three things:
Soul
Mysterious healthy tonic giving Soma Plant
The Sun
Half baked foreigners who translated the Vedas in European languages could not understand the word Eagle and not translated uniformly. The Eagle bringing Soma Plant which is found in hundreds of Vedic hymns could not be explained any foreigner who did a blunder of identifying Soma with some plants. The eagle and Soma connection gives biggest blow to Aryan Migration Theory; because Soma plant which is found throughout the Four Vedas is not found anywhere in any culture or literature outside India . Eagle in Rig Veda is used in symbolic meaning as well. Eagle research in the Vedas will reveal many secrets.
Eagle stood for speed, courage, power, and victory as well. Eagle bringing Amrita which is found in later epics and Puranas has its seed in Rig Veda.
Eagle is compared with Indra in the Rig Veda and later Sibi Chakravarthy Story.
Hindus used to wonder why we read Garuda Purana after someone dies in a family. Within the 13 day mourning period, a priest or a religious lecturer used to read a few chapters from Garuda (Eagle) purana .
After death, the dead person’s the soul goes up is in all Hindu scriptures. Sangam Tamil poets, who were great Hindus , also put it in a few poems. Like Hindus all ancient cultures believed in life after death and rebirth. But Hindus were the one who explained it in detail with Karma theory. Sangam Tamil poets talk about Good Karma and Bad karma and rebirth in umpteen poems. We have women praying that they should have the same husband in next birth as well in Tamil and Sanskrit books
Hindu thoughts largely influenced Egypt at least from 1500 BCE. We have proof of Hindu links in Dasaratha Letters (Amarna letters) in Egypt and marital links with Mitanni (Hindu) Civilization of Middle East.
If we go deeper into Egyptian Funerary books we find more similarities with Vedic Funerary Mantras.
Ba = Soul = Garuda in Egypt
Our Soul flies like Eagle
Garuda is called Ba in Egypt. The appearance is also same- human head with the body of a bird.
xxxxx
Ba
Ba, in ancient Egyptian religion, with the ka and the akh, a principal aspect of the soul; the ba appears in bird form, thus expressing the mobility of the soul after death. Originally written with the sign of the jabiru bird and thought to be an attribute of only the god-king, the ba was later represented by a man-headed hawk, often depicted hovering over the mummies of kings and commoners alike.
Appearance: The ba was always portrayed as a human-headed bird, usually a human-headed falcon. The ba bird was often shown hovering over the deceased’s mummy or leaving or entering the tomb at will.
Meaning: The word ba is usually translated as “soul” or “spirit”. However, ba is probably better translated as “spiritual manifestation.”
The ba is one of the specific components of the human being as understood in Egyptian thought. In the New Kingdom, the ba was a spiritual aspect of the human being which survived – or came into being – at death. It was endowed with the person’s individuality and personality. The ba occasionally revisited the tomb of the deceased, for the dead body was its rightful home.
Animals were sometimes thought to be the bau (plural of ba) of deities. At Heliopolis, the bennu bird was called the “ba of Re.” At Memphis the Apis bull was worshipped as the ba of Ptah or Osiris. At times, Osiris himself was called the “ba of Re”.
The ba could also represent anonymous gods or powers. As such, they are occasionally represented in various mythological contexts. They are shown greeting the sun or traveling with it in its barque. In some illustrations of the Book of the Dead, ba birds are shown towing the barque of the sun during its nightly journey through the underworld. These ba birds may represent deities, whether or not they are shown with the curved beards of gods.
The Book of the Dead, which was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects
The concept of the soul and the parts which encompass it has varied from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, at times changing from one dynasty to another, from five parts to more. Most ancient Egyptian funerary texts reference numerous parts of the soul:
· Khet or the “physical body”
· Sah or the “spiritual body”
· Ren or the “name, identity”
· Ba or the “personality”
· Ka or the “double” or “vital essence”
· Ib or the “heart”
· Shut or the “shadow”
· Sekhem or the “power, form”
Collectively, these spirits of a dead person were called the Akh after that person had successfully completed its transition to the afterlife.
xxxx
Sangam Tamil Literature and Garuda Purana
Tamil poet Kalladanar says in Akam 113:
“Oh, my friend! I won’t cry if my soul (life) leaves my body and goes to the place where my lover is working, like the bird that deserts its desolate nest and flies away”- said by a woman to her friend.
Kallatanar compares the soul departing from the body to a bird that leaves its nest in a tree and migrates to another in a distant place. This is what Tamil Hindus believed 2000 years ago.
So, this is a Hindu concept of soul which is seen in many Hindu scriptures including Manu smrti and Bhagavad Gita with different similes.
Tamil Veda Tirukkural
Tamil Veda Tirukkural confirms it with a couplet:
The affinity of the body and the soul is like that of the nest and a bird in it. The soul departs from the body even as the chick deserts the nest – Tirukkural 338.
Garuda (Eagle Purana) Purana has two sections; Purva Khanda and Uttara Khanda. Only Uttara Khanda, also known as Pretakhanda deals primarily with rituals associated with death and cremation
| GARUDA/EAGLE PURANA BY S V SUBRAHMANYAM | PAGE. | |
| CH. 1. | The Miseries of the Sinful in this World and the Other | 1 |
| 2. | The Way of Yama | 10 |
| 3. | The Torments of Yama | 21 |
| 4. | The Kinds of Sins which lead to Hell | 30 |
| 5. | The Signs of Sins | 38 |
| 6. | The Miseries of Birth of the Sinful | 46 |
| 7. | Babhruvâhana’s Sacrament for the Departed One | 52 |
| 8. | The Gifts for the Dying | 61 |
| 9. | The Rites for the Dying | 76 |
| 10. | The Collecting of the Bones from the Fire | 83 |
| 11. | The Ten-Days’ Ceremonies | 97 |
| 12. | The Eleventh-Day Rite | 103 |
| 13. | The Ceremony for all the Ancestors | 114 |
| 14. | The City of the King of Justice | 130 |
| 15 | The Coming to Birth of People who have done Good | 141 |
| 16. | The Law for Liberation | 154 |
In Rome
When Roman emperors were cremated ritually, an eagle was released above the funeral pyre to indicate that the soul has gone to dwell among the gods. One old Babylonian text tells us of the ascension of King Etana borne into the heavens by an eagle.
In fact, it is a Hindu belief. Hindus read the Garuda (Eagle) Purana during the 13 day mourning period after the death of a near and dear relative. Of the 18 major Puranas (Hindu Mythology), Garuda Purana is the only one that has got a special funeral liturgy called Pretakanda. Garuda (eagle) was the one who brought Amrita according to a Hindu story and so it symbolised immortality. Bird is always associated with the soul in Hindu literature.
xxxxx
Eagle is associated with Sun God in several cultures. In Palmyra in Syria, the eagle was associated with the Sun God. It is already in the Rig Veda dated earlier than 2000 BCE.
References:
Wikipedia, Brittanica, Hindu website, Rig Veda, Sangam Poems, Tirukkural, Egypt Myths
Garuda in Sumeria
A Hindu Story in Sumerian Civilization
Tamil and Vedas
https://tamilandvedas.com › 2014/05/11 › a-hindu-stor…
11 May 2014 — The story of Garuda (eagle) and Amrita is in Hindu mythology and Sumerian civilization. My research shows that the entire human beings were …
—subham—
Tags- Death, Garuda Purana, Eagle, in Vedas, Rome, Egypt, Soul, Ba, bird , Nest, Tirukkural, Sangam Poems, Rebirth
Tamil and Vedas 