Mastaba
(Eg.)
The upper portion of an Egyptian tomb, which, say the Egyptologists, consisted always of three parts: namely (1) the Mastaba or memorial chapel above ground, (2) a Pit from twenty to ninety feet in depth, which led by a passage, to (3) the Burial Chamber, where stood the Sarcophagus, containing the mummy sleeping its sleep of long ages. Once the latter interred, the pit was filled up and the entrance to it concealed. Thus say the Orientalists, who divide the last resting place of the mummy on almost the same principles as theologians do man—into body, soul, and spirit or mind. The fact is, that these tombs of the ancients were symbolical like the rest of their sacred edifices, and that this symbology points directly to the septenary division of man. But in death the order is reversed; and while the Mastaba with its scenes of daily life painted on the walls, its table of offerings, to the Larva, the ghost, or “Linga Sarira”, was a memorial raised to the two Principles and Life which had quitted that which was a lower trio on earth; the Pit, the Passage, the Burial Chambers and the mummy in the Sarcophagus, were the objective symbols raised to the two perishable “principles”, the personal mind and Kama, and the three imperishable, the higher Triad, now merged into one. This “One” was the Spirit of the Blessed now resting in the Happy Circle of Aanroo (TG).
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Shortly: The upper portion of an Egyptian tomb, which, say the Egyptologists, consisted always of three parts...