Saturday, July 12, 2014

Flaming Wrath, roooooaaaaarrrr!

The ancient Egyptians personified the wrath of the male king as a female figure. This was known as Sekhmet, the flaming goddess of justice with the face of a lioness (Assmann, 1991, p. 89).

Since the rulers were also obliged to reign with leniency as well as justly wrath, Sachmet had a softer sister, the cat goddess Bastet. This goddess was also a characteristic of the king pictured in female form.

Correspondingly, in Tibetan Buddhism the mild sister of the Palden Lhamo is the divine Tara.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting!