THE NAME OF BAST

Egyptian names ARE treacherous. First of all, hieroglyphics, like modern
Hebrew and Arabic, leave out most of their vowels. This makes it a bit of
guesswork as to how the name should be pronounced. As if that was not
enough, the Greeks mixed everything up by changing the Egyptian names into
Greek form . . . thus Horus was probably Heru, Osiris Asar (Crowley was
right about this... lol), and Isis Aset. What about Bast and Bubastis?

The name in hieroglyphs is written like this...

The vase is a bas vase, and the loaf represents the sound /t/. The word Bast is
made up of the word "bas" and the Egyptian suffix "-t", and is pronounced
"baohst" in the sense that there is a long "a" which has a bit of an o-sound to
it. Bastet, another form of her name would then be the feminine of Bast, which
is already feminine! This could be due to the fact that a vase and two loaves
were often given to her as an offering. Change them to hieroglyphics and it
would be "bas" + "t" + "t". Result... Bastet! That is not the preferred name,
but since it is widely used in books it deserved an explanation.

"Bast" means "the Tearer". Some other names which she is known by are
Ubasti (probably a very ancient form of her name, but the hieroglyphs would
not show much difference either due to the change taking place solely in the
vowels), Ba en Aset (literally "the soul of Aset (Isis)" – this is just a play on
words, but it was used by the Romans to integrate Bast into their version of the
cult of Isis. She was also called Pasht, and from this word the words "puss",
"pussy" and so on were believably derived. Some other cat-related words that
come from Ancient Egypt are actually all European words for "cat" – "cat",
"qattus", "gato", "gatto", "chat", "Katze" and so on. These are derived from
the word utchat which is the famous eye of Horus, a powerful amulet of Bast.

Even though a deity named Pakhet may bear many similarities to Bast, she is
not actually the selfsame deity. The name means "She who scratches" and may
be related to Bast ("Tearer") as well as the deity might be just an aspect of
Bast, but little is known about this goddess, even though Queen Hatshepsut
dedicated one of her most famous monuments, the Speos Artemidos to Pakhet.
(NOTE – notice that "Speos Artemidos" is the Greek name, and remember Bast being equated
with Artemis? Here is another similarity then.)

The Egyptian name for Bubastis (that is the Greek version), or contemporary
Tell-Basta, was Per-Bast, though it was also called Pa-Bast and Pibeseth,
"House of Bast". Unfortunately, this magnificent temple is today, nothing but
ruins. However for those who go to see the Sphinx at Giza, there is a "Portal
of Bast" built in the 22^nd dynasty possibly nearby.

Other titles Bast was given with time were "Lady of the East", "the Light
Bearer", "Lady of Truth" and "Goddess of the Birth Chamber".

The Pictures, from top to bottom are: Two statues of Bast in her cat form, two utchats or eyes of Horus, and the Sphinx at Giza.