Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/162

 I now come to another very remarkable point of coincidence between the Egyptian and the Indo-European religions.

The Ka or Genius.

When we speak of a man of genius, of a genius for poetry or for warfare, or of being inspired by the genius of the place, we are often forgetful of the original use of the word genius. The genius was a god, "sanctus et sanctissimus deus," as Servius calls him, in the religion of the Romans, worshipped with libations, incense and garlands of flowers. Every man had his own genius, which was to be propitiated by sacrificial offerings, and so had every god and even every locality. The genius was a sort of spiritual double of each individual. Men swore by their own genius, by the genius of Rome, of the gods, or of the emperor. Very similar facts are to be found in the Greek and in the Persian religions. The Fravishis in the religion of Zoroaster were heavenly types of created things, whether gods, men, mountains, streams or other objects, and formed a divine society, the guardian angels, as it were, of the good creation. Each individual thing was furnished with its Fravishi. On the Persian monuments, especially those of Persepolis, the king's Fravishi is