* See, ¢.9., the illustrations in Peters’ Nippur, ii. p. 379, pl. ii. ; Scheil, Une Saison de Fouilles @ Sippar (Cairo, 1902), p. 81.
of the gods to save the desperately ill — those apparently already in the power of the gods of the nether world—from the dark abode; but they do not imply a real resurrection of the dead.
On the whole, the description given of ‘ the land without return,’ at the opening of the story we have just considered, represents the prevailing doctrines in botl Babylonia and Assyria. The name given to the abode of the dead is commonly Aralid, and the references to it in the religious literature show that it was pictured_as a large dark cavern in the interior of the earth, with the entrance from the west, within which was situated the palace of Eresh-kigal. The approach to the great cavern is by means of a stream which must be crossed by the dead. Once in the great cavern, the dead are under the control of Nergal and Eresh-kigal, and around this pair we find a group of deities and demons who act as messengers and attendants, and constitute the pantheon of the nether world, which is almost as extensive in its scope as that which controls the world of the living. How far, according to the popular view, the dead were endowed with consciousness of their sad state, it is difficult to say. If the references to dust and earth as the food of the dead are more than poetical metaphors, they must have been conceived as being at least conscious of their misery ; while references both in the historical and religious literature to libations and food-offerings for the dead and to the curse resulting from leav- ing the dead unburied, or from exposing them, after burial, to the sunlight, show that the dead were supposed to require the care and forethought of the survivors.* In this respect, a passage at the close of the Gilgamesh epic—perhaps the most notable literary achievement of Babylonia—is of significance. Kabani, housed in Aralfi, appears to Gilgamesh at his solicitation, and reveals to him some of the secrets of the life in the dark abode +—
“He rests on a couch, Drinking pure water, Who died in battle, as you and I have seen.{ His father and mother support his head, His wife with him. . . . But he whose body is thrown in the field, As you and I have seen, The leavings of the pot, remains of food, What is thrown into the street, he eats.’
According to this passage, a distinction was made between the fate of those who died an honourable death, and by implication were properly taken care of, and those who were not accorded a fitting burial. Still, even the fate of those who were suitably provided for, to whom food and libation-offerings were regularly made, was sad enough ; and Gil- gamesh, in a lament over his dead friend Eabani, portrays with striking vividness the gloomy exist- ence of those who are gathered together in Aralt..§ They lie there, inactive, deprived of the pleasures that this world offers, shorn of their strength and powers—prisoners without hope of release. Sad- ness is thus the prevailing note when the thoughts of the living turn to the fate in store for mankind after life has fled from the body. Only ocea- sionally do we find the expression of a faint belief that all is not dark and gloomy for the dead, that at least some favoured individuals enjoy a better fortune. At one time the view appeared to have been held that the kings after their death were accorded a place among the gods.|| Statues of the
* See the collection of passages in A. Jeremias, Die Baby- lonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 46-58.
t Tablet xii. col. vi. (ed. Haupt, Bettrdge z. Assyr. i. p. 65). See Jensen, Keilins. Bibi. vi. 1, pp. 264, 265.
{ 7.e. as every one knows.
§ Tablet xii. col. i. (ed. Haupt, Beit. z. Assyr. i. p. 57).
|| See the collection of references in Radau, Early Babylonian History, pp. 807-317.
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
SS ee
rulers were placed in the temples and accorded Divine honours, and even temples were erected bearing their names. But though this view may have had a strong hold upon the masses at one time, in connexion with the belief that the rulers, as standing close to the gods, were in some way descended from them, it soon lost its hold, and we learn little about it after the days of Hammurabi. In the Gilgamesh epic, likewise, which want of space forbids us to treat at length,* there is a most important hint of an escape from the ordinary fate of mortals through the intercession of the gods. Gilgamesh, in the course of his wanderings, comes to Ut-napishtim + to seek release from the disease with which he has been smitten. Although a mortal, Ut-napishtim is placed with the gods, after Bel, the instigator of a flood which has de- stroyed mankind, has become reconciled, through the intervention of Ea—the god of humanity—to the preservation of Ut-napishtim and his family from the general destruction. There are also some further references,t though all more or less obscure, which admit of an interpretation pointing to the possibility of a renewal of real life after death. But these, while foreshadowing the rise of a doctrine of resurrection as taken up by later Judaism and by Christianity, do not counter- balance the gloomy view of Arali, which seems to have remained for all times the prevailing one. Had this not been the case, we should not have found, as late as the days of Nebuchadrezzar I1., pictorial representations of the life after death, which could have aroused only feelings of terror and fear on the part of those who beheld them.§