Chapter 47 Chapter Forty-Five

In the tenth year of his reign, Seti decided to let Ramses take a crucial step; although he was only eighteen years old, the regent could not rule the country without going through the mystical ritual of Osiris.Pharaoh had hoped to wait a little longer until his son matured, but fate might not allow him to live a long life.Despite the dangers inherent in this step of the young man's balanced growth, Seti decided to take him to Abydos. He, Seti, the human form of the god Seth, who murdered his elder brother Osiris and then built to him the largest temple in Egypt, in his name appeases a terrible force of destruction, and the pharaoh will It transforms into the divine power of resurrection.

Ramesses walked behind his father through the first pylon gate of the temple, and two priests washed his hands and feet in a stone basin for him.After passing an ancient well, he saw the gate of the open-air temple.Before each statuette in the shape of King Osiris, there are bouquets and baskets full of offerings. "This is the Land of Light," Seti said. The gates, of Lebanese cedar, inlaid with amber, seemed impassable. "Do you want to go further?" Ramses nodded in agreement. The doors were ajar.A priest with a bald head and a white robe forced Ramses to bend down.When he set foot on the silver land, he felt that he was transported to a paradise covered with frankincense.

Before each of the seven small temples, Seti raised a small statue of the goddess Maat, which symbolizes the totality of offerings, and then he led his son to the gallery of the ancestors, where the Has the names of all the pharaohs who ruled Egypt. "They all passed away," Seti said, "but their aura lives on, and it will nourish your thoughts and guide your actions. As long as the sky lasts, so does the temple. Here you will communicate with the gods, And you will learn their secrets, care about their existence, and perpetuate the light they created." Together, father and son read the hieroglyphs on the cylinders, which told the pharaoh that he must draw up plans for the construction of the temple, strictly implement the royal functions derived from the temple, and prepare altars for the gods, so that they will bless them and their blessings will shine on the earth.

"The names of your ancestors shall remain forever in the starry night sky," said Seti. "Their chronology goes back millions of years. Govern by law, and keep it in your heart, for it reconciles all things." Ramesses was shocked by a carved scene. A young man on top of him captured a wild bull with the help of the pharaoh!The master engraver immortalized that moment, and every future crown prince would know nothing about the future if he did not experience this moment. Seti and Ramses walked out of the temple and walked towards a small hill full of trees. "The tomb of Osiris, which few people think of."

They walked down to an underground entrance, before which there was a flight of stairs leading to a vaulted corridor with a length of 100 meters. The articles on the walls of the corridor recorded the names of all the passage gates in the underworld.A right-angled turn to the left leads to an extraordinary structure: ten massive stone pillars stand on a small island surrounded by water and support the zenith of a small temple. "Osiris rises from the dead in this colossal sarcophagus every year in a mystical ceremony celebrating him. He is the first important person from the divine ocean. Everything in the world is born twice, and everything in the world is born forever. Embracing as one again. The Nile, the flooding of the river, the morning dew, the torrential rain, and the source of sweet springs come from this invisible ocean. The solar ship sails on it, which makes our world rotate in the universe. May your heart be here Indulgence, may it cross the boundaries of the tangible, and scour its energy in the realm of no beginning and no end."

As night fell, Ramesses joined Osiris in a mystical ritual. He drank water from the invisible sea and ate ears of wheat from the resurrected Osiris, then dressed in fine linen, and entered the ranks of the god's faithful, preceded by a priest wearing a jackal mask lead.Seth's lackeys stand in their way, attempting to uproot them and annihilate Osiris, and a ritual of religious struggle begins to unsettling music.Ramesses played the role of Horus, the son and heir of Osiris, who gave the Son of Light the victory over the Son of Darkness, but in the middle of the battle his father was stabbed to death.

The faithful of Osiris immediately carried him to the sacred hill, and immediately arranged a vigil attended by some priestesses, including Duya, who was incarnated from Isis, a great magician, whose spell he Reunited Osiris's torn body and brought him back from the dead.Ramesses recorded in his mind every word that was spoken on this night beyond time; not his mother crowned him, but a goddess.Participating in religious ceremonies brought Ramses' mind into the mystery of resurrection. Several times, he hesitated, thinking that he had lost all contact with the human world and was disintegrated in the underworld.But he fought this strange battle, and his body and his mind remained together.

Ramesses spent several weeks in Abydos, meditating by the shadowy holy lake.During the mysteries, the Osiris sails the lake, assembled by sunlight rather than by human hands.The regent lingered near the "Stairway of the Great", surrounded by steles of the dead whose souls had been sentenced before the court of Osiris, and the souls of these headed men came to Abai with the pilgrimage procession. Dos in order to enjoy the daily offerings offered by the priests. The treasury of the temple was opened to him, containing gold, silver, royal linen, statues, holy oils, frankincense, wine, honey, myrrh, ointments, and vases.Ramesses was interested in the granary, which kept crops from the Abydos region and was sanctified before being distributed to the common people.Bulls, fattened cows, calves, rams and poultry were likewise blessed, and some animals were herded into the temple stables and most returned to nearby villages.

According to a decree issued in the fourth year of Seti's reign, everyone who works for the temple must recognize his duties and must never leave his job. persecution due to abuse of power, servitude and conscription.Prime ministers, judges, ministers, mayors and dignitaries are all ordered to obey this decree and must carry it out.All ships, donkeys, lands and assets of Abydos are not transferable.In addition, all the farmers, field cultivators, grape growers and winemakers, and other gardeners lived a carefree life under the double protection of Pharaoh and Osiris.In order to let everyone know, Seti engraved his decree on a dazzling stone tablet 280 meters long and 156 meters wide at Nori, the center of Nubia.If anyone dared to use the land of the temple or recruit one of the servants against the will, he would be punished with two hundred sticks and his nose or ears would be cut off.

Participating in daily temple ceremonies taught Ramses that sacred things and economics are inseparable, even though they are completely different from each other.When the pharaoh placed himself among the saints and communicated with the gods who existed, the material world no longer existed, but after all, it took talented architects and carvers to build temples and bring the stones of temples to life. And the king, thanks to the hard work of the farmers, was able to offer the most exquisite food to the invisible gods. Absolute truth is not taught in the temple, and no dogma binds the mind to blind obedience; the place of reincarnation of the divine spirit, the immobility of the stone warship is only appearance, the temple purifies the heart, transforms forms and sanctifies things.This is the center of Egyptian society. It used love to connect Pharaoh with the Holy Spirit, and let the people live in such love.

Ramses paced back and forth in the corridors of ancestors, identifying the names of the kings who built their countries on the basis of "mayat".Adjacent to the temple are the tombs of the previous kings, where lie not their mummies - they are placed in the eternal temple of Saqqara - but their formless and immortal bodies, without which the pharaohs would be nothing. Can't survive. Suddenly, such a responsibility weighed heavily on him.He's just a young lad of eighteen, loving life, burning with fire, but unable to inherit these great men!How could he have the audacity and ego to ascend the throne that Seti has? Ramesses was intoxicated in his dreams, and Abydos made him place himself in the real world, which is what his father really meant by bringing him here.What better way for him to understand his own smallness than this temple? The Regent stepped over the fence and walked towards the river.Time to go back to Memphis, marry Iser, drink with friends, tell father he's giving up the regent; if his brother wants it so much, why stop it? Lost in thought, Ramses lost his way in the village. He walked into the lowlands beside the Nile and was trapped in the reeds.He pushed aside the reeds and looked forward. A wild bull with long drooping ears, thick legs like stone pillars, brown and black fur, a stiff mustache, and sharp horns at the end of a helmet, stared at him with the same ferocious eyes as four years ago. Ramses was not deterred. It was the bull, possessor of nature's supernatural powers and king of animals, who revealed his destiny to him.If it rushed at him, stabbed him with its horns, and trampled him with its feet, there would be one less prince in the royal family of Egypt, which could easily find someone else to replace him; if it let him live, such a life would never again It belonged to him, because he had to behave himself to be worthy of such favors.