This is a page for the Goddess Bastet.



Bastet, Bast, Pasch, Ubastis,Ubasti, Ba an Aset, and many other nicknames are with her. Bast is slowly starting to become one of the better known goddess' these days.

(Minx's comment::::  with my influence, DAMN RIGHT!)

              Daughter of the sun god Ra, wife of Ptah, and mother of Mihos, Bast is an ancient Egyptian goddess who is still greatly revered by many today. Her worship began around the year 3200 BCE during the second dynasty in northern Egypt and her city is Bubastis. 
     
  Bast is the Sacred Cat and her name means 'devouring lady'. She is depicted as having the body of a woman and the head of a domestic cat. She holds the sacred rattle, Sistrum, and she possesses Utchat, the divine, all-seeing eye of Ra.

 As the daughter of Ra Or A.K.A amun, or 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
   Indeed, the people of ancient Egypt turned to Bast for protection and for blessing, as she was a renowned and beloved goddess. She was the protectress of women, children, and domestic cats. She was the goddess of sunrise, music, dance, and pleasure(all around from sexual to drug related pleasure) as well as family, fertility, and birth, and associated with the Eye of Ra, acting as the instrument of the Sun God's vengeance.

     Cats were very sacred animals to the ancient Egyptians. They held a high, honoured position in many households and were more important even than humans. Cats were demigods in ancient Egypt. Anyone caught harming or killing a cat, even by accident, was punished by death, for cats guarded the royal granaries keeping them relatively free from vermin which threatened the food supplies.

Once per year, a great festival was held in Bubastis to honour Bast, attracting devotees from all over the country. According to Herodotus, the original accidental tourist, upwards of 700,000 people attended, most traveling by barges to the sound of flutes and percussion instruments. Though this was a religious festival, gaiety was rampant along the riverbanks and through all the avenues of the city, and in character it could easily be compared to Mardi Gras. One aspect of the festival, however, was quite moving, and came on the last night - in a town of silence, a town of darkness, a single light is lit in the Temple of Bast, and from there the light spreads through the town, carried by devotees; and prayers rise into the night, accompanied by music and incense.
   All things come to an end, and so it came to Bubastis, destroyed by the Persians in 350 BCE. Today, only ruins remain of Bubastis, and the once-proud temple is nothing but tumbled blocks. One of few sights to see these days is the famous cat cemetery, where so many beloved pets journeyed to the Other Realm.

  ~*~ .:Sekhmet - Twin Sister of Bastet:. ~*~

Another aspect of Bast is her twin sister, Sekhmet. Sekhmet is also a goddess, depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness. She represents the negative, darker side of the goddess. As the lioness goddess, Sekhmet symbolizes the destructive forces in Nature and in human nature, while Bast is everything pure and good and life-giving. Together, the sister goddesses make up a whole - the balance of good and evil.
Every year there used to be a great festival in honor of this whole goddess. Sekhmet and Bast. Held on October 31st. (just like holloween)
Where the Egyptians would celebrate the seperation of the two goddess'. Ying and Yang so to speak. Sekhmet as the darker, and more feirce side of this triple faced goddess. And Bast as the motherly loving side. and finally the whole together as one. Forming a complete circle.




"O Ra, exalted Lion-king, thou art the great cat, the avenger of Gods and the judge of words..." The seventy-five praises of Ra - c. 1700 BC