BASTET

"Bast is the Egyptian Goddess and protector of cats, women and children. She is Goddess of sunrise. Her goddess duty changed over the years, but, she is also known as a goddess of love, fertility, birth, music and dance. Bast is the Goddess of the moon."

- windsprite's realm

The fierce yet seductively beautiful Egyptian
goddess Bastet was worshipped as the great
protectress and ruler of cats. She is also known as
a goddess of life and joy, as well as a guardian of women.

-jessica galbreth

 

Bast is the Egyptian Goddess and protector of cats, women and children. She is Goddess of sunrise. Her goddess duty changed over the years, but, she is also known as a goddess of love, fertility, birth, music and dance. Bast is the Goddess of the moon.

-windsprite's realm

 

from crystallinks.com

BAST - BASTET - UBASTET - PAKHET

Bast, Perfumed Protector, Cat Goddess

In ancient Egypt the cat was worshipped as a sacred animal - the mother or creator.

Bast is the Egyptian Goddess and protector of cats, women and children. She is Goddess of sunrise. Her goddess duty changed over the years, but, she is also known as a goddess of love, fertility, birth, music and dance.

She has been dated to at least the Second Dynasty (c. 2890-2686 Before Common Era [B.C.E.]).

Bast is depicted in art in many different ways. The most common is the body of young woman with the head of a domestic cat sometimes holding a sistrum. Her 'sister' Sekhmet, is shown with the head of a lioness.

In early times Bast (written as 'Bastet' by scribes in later times to emphasize that the 't' was to be pronounced) was a goddess with the head of a lion or a desert sand-cat and was regarded as mother of Mahes, a lion-headed god. She was usually depicted as a cat, or as a woman with the head of a cat or lion. She was also connected to Hathor, Sekhmet, Tefnut, Atum (her father) and Mut. It was only in the New Kingdom that she gained the head of a house cat and became a much more 'friendly' goddess, though she was still depicted as a lion-headed woman to show her war-like side. As with Hathor, Bast is often seen carrying a sistrum.

Her name has the hieroglyph of a 'bas'-jar with the feminine ending of 't'. These jars were heavy perfume jars, often filled with expensive perfumes - they were very valuable in Egypt, considering the Egyptian need (with the hot weather) of makeup, bathing, hygiene and (of course) perfume. Bast, by her name, seems to be related to perfumes in some way. Her son Nefertem, a solar god, was a god of perfumes and alchemy, which supports the theory. She was the mother of Mahes a Lion-headed God of healing. His main temple was at Leontopolis, although he did have a shrine at Bubastis. Bastet has another son in the form of the lion-headed god Mihos.

There is some confusion over Bast and Sekhmet. She was also considered to be the mother of Nefertem, as were a few other goddesses! Sekhmet was given the title the 'Eye of Ra' when she was in her protector form... but Bast and Sekhmet are not the same goddess (unlike Hathor who becomes Sekhmet as the 'Eye of Ra'). This all gives rise to a lot of confusion about these goddesses. Bast and Sekhmet were another example of Egyptian duality - Sekhmet was a goddess of Upper Egypt, Bast of Lower Egypt (just like the pharaoh was of Upper and/or Lower Egypt!)... and they were linked together by geography, not by myth or legend. These two feline goddesses were not related by family, they were both very distinct goddesses in their own rights.

Bast was one of the older goddesses, mentioned in the Book of the Dead (this was a selection of spells, rather than an actual book):

The Chapter of the Deification of the Members (From the Pyramid of Pepi I)

The breast of this Meri-Ra is the breast of Bast; he cometh forth therefore and ascended into heaven.

Rubric

If this Chapter be known by the deceased upon earth, he shall become like unto Thoth, and he shall be adored by those who live. He shall not fall headlong at the moment of the intensity of the royal flame of the goddess Bast, and the Great Prince shall make him to advance happily.
Even from very old times, as protector, Bast was seen as the fierce flame of the sun who burned the deceased should they fail one of the many tests in the underworld.

Some of Bast's festivals included the 'Procession of Bast', 'Bast appears to Ra', the 'Festival of Bast', 'Bast Goes Forth from Bubastis' and 'Bast guards the Two Lands'. There was even a 'Festival of Hathor and Bast', showing the connection between the two goddesses.

Herodotus describes the 'Festival of Bast' where thousands of men and women traveled on boats, partying like crazy. They had music, singing, clapping and dancing. When they passed towns, the women would call out dirty jokes to the shore-bound, often flashing the townsfolk by lifting up their skirts over their heads! When they reached Bubastis, they made their sacrifices of various animals, and drank as much wine as they could stomach. No wonder it was such a popular festival!!

When the people are on their way to Bubastis, they go by river, a great number in every boat, men and women together. Some of the women make a noise with rattles, others play flutes all the way, while the rest of the women, and the men, sing and clap their hands. As they travel by river to Bubastis, whenever they come near any other town they bring their boat near the bank; then some of the women do as I have said, while some shout mockery of the women of the town; others dance, and others stand up and lift their skirts. They do this whenever they come alongside any riverside town. But when they have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great sacrifices, and more wine is drunk at this feast than in the whole year besides. It is customary for men and women (but not children) to assemble there to the number of seven hundred thousand, as the people of the place say.
-- Herodotus, Histories Book II Chap 60

Her cult centre was in Bubastis (the temple is now in ruins, but it was made of red granite with a sacred grove in the centre, with the shrine of the goddess herself... it was also full of cats). She was also worshiped all over Lower Egypt. In Bubastis we see Bast holding a sistrum or rattle. Bastet wore an aegis or shield in the form of a semi-circular plate, embellished with a lion's head. She was goddess of pleasure and inevitably became one of the most popular deities. Bubastis signifies The House of Cats in ancient Egyptian. Bast feast day is celebrated on October 31. The Egyptians celebrated the feast of Bast with merry making, music, dancing, drinking much like our modern Marti Gras. Bast's devotees celebrated their lady with processions of flower-laden barges and orgiastic ceremonies. Her festivals were licentious and quite popular. Cities in which festivals of Bast were celebrated included Thebes, Memphis, Bubastis, and Esna.

In her temple were kept sacred cats, who were supposed to be incarnations of the goddess. When they died they were carefully mummified. The Egyptians found something to worship in just about every animal they had: dogs, cats, lions, crocodiles, snakes, dung-beetles, hippos, hawks, cows and ibises.

As the daughter of Re she is associated with the rage inherent in the sun-god's eye, his instrument of vengeance. It was probably this ferocity that made the analogy so plausible between Bastet and lioness. Her development into the cat-goddess par excellence, of the Late Period of Egyptian civilization, retains the link with the sun-god but in some ways softens the vicious side of her nature. She becomes a peaceful creature, destroying only vermin, and unlike her leonine form she can be approached fearlessly and stroked.

Images of Bast as a lion-headed figure holding a was-scepter (from the Hall of Osorkon at Bubastis ) or with a lion's mane and holding the Eye of Ra can be found throughout Egyptian art from the Late Period on. Bast is shown in one depiction as wearing the Double Crown (the red and the white "nested" together) and suckling the Pharaoh - perhaps an allusion to the rise of popularity with Per-Bast or Bubastis, the Domain of Bast.

Bast is often shown holding the ankh or the papyrus wand, and sometimes the was-scepter (usually only in connection to Bubastis, which was the home of Her cult - in the delta region, where a necropolis has been found containing mummified cats. ). The papyrus wand is a significant and slightly baffling item for her to be holding, as this item usually signifies a "first" or primordial god such as Ma'at and Tefnut (both of whom are daughters of Ra and Tem, respectively). This may provide a tantalizing clue as to Bast's suspicious lack of representation in common Egyptian mythology, and may connect Her to Tefnut, Who, like Bast, is also the Eye of Tem-Ra and depicted with a feline head.

Another popular form of Bast, is her Earthly form, as a seated cat. When in this form her name changes to Bastet. Bastet is a cat-headed goddess, a local deity of the Delta. Cats were sacred to Bast as a symbol of animal passion.

In her earliest appearances in the Pyramid Era - Bastet is a goddess closely linked to the king. A magnificent example of precise engineering in the Old Kingdom, namely the valley temple of King Khafre at Giza, carries on its facade the names of two goddess only - Hathor of Southern Egypt and Bastet of the north. The latter is invoked as a benign royal protectress in the Pyramid Texts where, in a spell to enable him to reach the sky, the king proclaims that his mother and nurse is Bastet.

From her epithet 'lady of Asheru', the precinct of the goddess Mut at Karnak, it is clear that Bastet had a place on Theban soil where she could be equated with the consort of Amun- especially since the lioness and the cat were also claimed as sacred animals by Mut. Reliefs in the temple of Karnak show the pharaoh celebrating ritual races carrying either four scepters and a bird or an oar in front of Bastet who is called ruler of 'Sekhet-neter' or the 'Divine Field'- i.e. Egypt.

No life-size -or greater - representations of Bast, in any form, have survived intact, although a great many smaller bronzes and statues have been recovered and can now be seen in museums around the world. But this does not necessarily mean that larger statues didn't exist. In his 'Histories', Herodotus wrote that a statue of the Goddess existed in the main temple shrine at Bubastis, but gives no detailed description of her.

Today, no shrines or temples remain of Bast in Egypt; even Bubastis was mostly ruins by the time Naville got around to it.

There is a "Portal of Bast" on the Giza Plateau (fittingly, near the Sphinx), and statues have been discovered showing Khaefre accompanied by Her.

A painting of Bast is present within the tomb of Nefertari at Abu Simbel, and dozens of bronze statues dating from the Late Period have been discovered amidst the cat cemetery found at Per-Bast.