Ma'at | The Goddess Of Truth And Justice
Maat or maʻat: The goddess of truth and justice, sometimes symbolised by a feather. Maat is also credited with controlling the seasons and the movement of the stars, which is why Egypt was known as the land of the Nile and Maat. She is represented as a lady with an ostrich feather on her head, the symbol of justice, and in the image we find her holding the key of life (Ankh) in one hand and the scepter of judgement in the other.
The real reason behind Maat's association with the ostrich feather as her symbol remains unclear. It may be due to the feathers' association with flight, and thus with the cosmic world of the sky as a cosmic goddess; or perhaps due to the lightness of the feather, which expresses purity and purity and the unburdenedness of sins and sins; or for another reason that is unknown to us.
Maat was associated with many gods and goddesses, most notably the cosmic gods, as she is the daughter of the god Ra, and had a prominent role in the journey of the sun and solar songs. Maat embodies the cosmic order that Ra entrusted the king with establishing and establishing the rule of the earth. The king had to do this and perform the ritual of offering ‘Maat’, a metaphor for all of this and the ‘Maat offering’.
She was also associated with the goddess ‘Chhoti’ The god of wisdom and knowledge, she was known as his wife and appeared with him in the scene of weighing the heart of the deceased, as well as appearing on the boat of the sun god ‘Ra’. Maat was associated with the king, who was responsible to the gods for establishing order and justice, and establishing the ‘Maat’ in its rightful place that the gods created for the universe.
Furthermore, it is stated that in ancient Egyptian beliefs, the heart of the dead man was placed on one pan of a scale and the feather of the goddess Maat, on the other, to compute the number of deceased persons in the underworld. If the balance rested in favor of the heart, the soul would go to Heaven, but if the feather tipped the scale, it was believed that the soul would go to Hell which ancient Egyptians represented as a fictional aggressive animal called Ammut with a crocodile's head, a lion's torso and the back of a hippopotamus. The underworld had a court with forty-two judges, the same number of the provinces of Egypt who were under the authority of Osiris.
Anubis would accompany the deceased to the courtroom, and the judges would start questioning the deceased about his actions in the world, whether he followed the Maat (righteous path) or was one of the sinners. The deceased takes on the persona of a defendant: Neither have I killed, nor have I shocked anyone, nor have I reported my boss, nor thieved. I have been a benefactor to the underprivileged by providing food, clothing and assistance and quenched the thirst of many. This is where the members of the tribunal started inquiring from him about the deities and he had to recite them all with the utmost caution lest he misses one.
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