Surakarta
Surakarta is a city in Central Java. The 46 km2 city adjoins Karanganyar Regency and Boyolali Regency to the north, Karanganyar Regency and Sukoharjo Regency to the east and west, Sukoharjo Regency to the south. On the eastern side of Solo lies Solo River, its built-up area made of Surakarta Municipality and 59 districts spread on 7 regencies was home to 3,649,254 inhabitants as of 2010 census. Surakarta is the birthplace of the current President of Joko Widodo, he served as Mayor of Surakarta from 2005 to 2012. The water sources for Surakarta are in the valley of Merapi, a total of 19 locations, with a capacity of 3,404 l/second; the average source water height is 800–1,200 m above sea level. In 1890–1927 there were only 12 wells in Surakarta. Today, underground water wells in 23 locations produce about 45 l/second. In March 2006, Surakarta's state water company had a production capacity of 865.02 l/second: from Cokrotulung, Klaten, 27 km from Solo, 387 l/s. The total reservoir capacity is 9,140 m3 nd.
Under the Köppen climate classification, Surakarta features a tropical monsoon climate. The city has a lengthy wet season spanning from October through June, a short dry season covering the remaining three months. On average Surakarta receives just under 2200 mm of rainfall annually, with its wettest months being December and February; as is common in areas featuring a tropical monsoon climate, temperatures are consistent throughout the year. Surakarta's average temperature is 30°C every month. Surakarta City and its surrounding regencies, Sragen, Sukoharjo and Boyolali, are collectively called the ex-Surakarta Residency. After Surakarta became a city, it was divided into five districts, each led by a camat, subdivided into 51 kelurahan, each led by a lurah; the districts of Surakarta are: Kecamatan Pasar Kliwon: 9 kelurahan Kecamatan Jebres: 11 kelurahan Kecamatan Banjarsari: 13 kelurahan Kecamatan Laweyan: 11 kelurahan Kecamatan Serengan: 7 kelurahan Surakarta as a dense core city in Central Java, its second city, spills into neighboring regencies.
Though a traffic study quotes the population as 1,158,000 as of 2008, this reflects only the core, as the city affects entire neighboring regencies by driving up overall population densities in Sukoharjo Regency and Klaten Regency over the dense countryside. Furthermore, the government of Indonesia defines a broader region as Surakarta's extended metropolitan zone, with the acronym Subosukawonosraten as the city and 6 surrounding regencies. Though not a core metropolitan area as some of its regencies are not suburbanized, it reflects a broader planning region. Both the metropolitan area and extended areas border Yogyakarta's metropolitan area, while only the extended metropolitan area borders Kedungsapur or Greater Semarang. One of the earliest censuses held in Surakarta Residency was in 1885. At that time, with an area of about 5,677 km², there were 1,053,985 people in Surakarta Residency, including 2,694 Europeans and 7,543 Indonesian-Chinese; the area, 130 times the current area of Surakarta, had a population density of 186 people/km².
The capital of the residency itself in 1880 had 124,041 people living in it. According to the 2009 census, there were 283,159 females in Surakarta. 119,951 of the population were 14 years or younger, 376,180 were between 15 and 64, 32,071 were above 65. The number of households was 142,627 and the average number of household members was 3.7. The population growth in the last 10 years was about 0.565% per year. The labor force of Solo in 2009 was 275,546, of whom 246,768 were working, while 28,778 were seeking work. Another 148,254 people aged 15 and above were not in the labor force. Based on employment numbers, the most common work in Solo was worker/paid employee, followed by self-employee, self-employee assisted by temporary employee, unpaid employee, self-employee assisted by permanent employee, freelance employee in non-agricultural work, freelance employee in agricultural work. Based on the industry, most people in Solo worked in trade, manufacturing, construction, financing, or agriculture, the rest in mining, electricity and water companies.
The mean working week in Solo was 47.04 hours, 212,262 people worked more than 35 hours per week compared to 34,506 who worked less than that. According to 2009 statistics, 242,070 people above 15 in the city had finished high school, while 86,890 had only finished junior high school, 94,840 were still in school or had only finished elementary school; the percentage of high-school graduates was the highest of the regencies in Central Java. According to the statistics of Data Pokok Pendidikan, in the 2010/2011 school year, there were 68,153 students and 853 schools in Surakarta. There are two big universities possessing more than 20.000 students: Sebelas Mar
Suharto
Suharto was an Indonesian military leader and politician who served as the second President of Indonesia, holding the office for 31 years, from the ousting of Sukarno in 1967 until his resignation in 1998. He was regarded by foreign commentators as a dictator. However, his legacy is still debated at home and abroad. Suharto was born in a small village, Kemusuk, in the Godean area near the city of Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial era, he grew up in humble circumstances. His Javanese Muslim parents divorced not long after his birth, he lived with foster parents for much of his childhood. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw his joining the newly formed Indonesian Army. Suharto rose to the rank of major general following Indonesian independence. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 backed by the Communist Party of Indonesia was countered by Suharto-led troops; the army subsequently led an anti-communist purge, which the U.
S. Central Intelligence Agency described as "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century" and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, he was appointed acting president in 1967, elected President the following year. He mounted a social campaign known as De-Sukarnoization to reduce the former President's influence. Support for Suharto's presidency was strong throughout the 1980s. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption were a source of discontent and, following the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 which led to widespread unrest, he resigned in May 1998. Suharto was given a state funeral; the legacy of Suharto's 31-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War.
For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialisation improving health and living standards. Plans to award National Hero status to Suharto are being considered by the Indonesian government and have been debated vigorously in Indonesia. According to Transparency International, Suharto is the most corrupt leader in modern history, having embezzled an alleged $15–35 billion during his rule. Suharto was born on 8 June 1921 during the Dutch East Indies era, in a plaited-bamboo-walled house in the hamlet of Kemusuk, a part of the larger village of Godean; the village is 15 kilometres west of Yogyakarta, the cultural heartland of the Javanese. Born to ethnic Javanese parents, he was the only child of his father's second marriage, his father, had two children from his previous marriage, was a village irrigation official. His mother, Sukirah, a local woman, was distantly related to Hamengkubuwana V by his first concubine. Five weeks after Suharto's birth, his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and he was placed in the care of his paternal great-aunt, Kromodirjo.
Kertosudiro and Sukirah divorced early in Suharto's life and both remarried. At the age of three, Suharto was returned to his mother, who had married a local farmer whom Suharto helped in the rice paddies. In 1929, Suharto's father took him to live with his sister, married to an agricultural supervisor, Prawirowihardjo, in the town of Wuryantoro in a poor and low-yielding farming area near Wonogiri. Over the following two years, he was taken back to his mother in Kemusuk by his stepfather and back again to Wuryantoro by his father. Prawirowihardjo took to raising the boy as his own, which provided Suharto a father-figure and a stable home in Wuryantoro. In 1931, he moved to the town of Wonogiri to attend the primary school, living first with Prawirohardjo's son Sulardi, with his father's relative Hardjowijono. While living with Hardjowijono, Suharto became acquinted with Darjatmo, a dukun of Javanese mystical arts and faith healing; the experience affected him and as president, Suharto surrounded himself with powerful symbolic language.
Difficulties in paying the fees for his education in Wonogiri resulted in another move back to his father in Kemusuk, where he continued studying at a lower-fee Muhammadiyah middle school in the city of Yogyakarta until 1939. Like many Javanese, Suharto had only one name. In religious contexts in recent years he has sometimes been called "Haji" or "el-Haj Mohammed Suharto" but these names were not part of his formal name or used; the spelling "Suharto" reflects modern Indonesian spelling, although the general approach in Indonesia is to rely on the spelling preferred by the person concerned. At the time of his birth, the standard transcription was "Soeharto" but he preferred the original spelling; the international English-language press uses the spelling'Suharto' while the Indonesian government and media use'Soeharto'. Suharto's upbringing contrasts with that of leading Indonesian nationalists such as Sukarno in that he is believed to have had little interest in anti-colonialism, or political concerns beyond his immediate surroundings.
Unlike Sukarno and his circle, Suharto had no contact with European colonizers. He did not learn to speak Dutch or other European languages in his youth, he learned to speak Dutch after his induction into the Dutch military in 1940. Suharto took a clerical job at a bank in Wuryantaro, he was forced to resign. Following a s
Vihara
Vihara refers to a monastery for Buddhist renunciates. The concept is ancient and in early Sanskrit and Pali texts, it meant any arrangement of space or facilities for pleasure and entertainment; the term evolved into an architectural concept wherein it refers to living quarters for monks with an open shared space or courtyard in Buddhism. The term is found in Ajivika and Jain monastic literature referring to temporary refuge for wandering monks or nuns during the annual Indian monsoons. In modern Jainism, the monks continue to wander from town to town except during the rainy season, the term "vihara" refers their wanderings. Vihara or vihara hall has a more specific meaning in the architecture of India ancient Indian rock-cut architecture. Here it means a central hall, with small cells connected to it sometimes with beds carved from the stone; some have a shrine cell set back at the centre of the back wall, containing a stupa in early examples, or a Buddha statue later. Typical large sites such as the Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad Caves, Karli Caves, Kanheri Caves contain several viharas.
Some included a worship hall nearby. The vihara was originated to be a shelter for Monks. Vihāra is a Sanskrit word, it means a form of "distribution, separation, arrangement", either of words or sacred fires or sacrificial ground. Alternatively, it refers to a form of wandering roaming, any place to rest or please oneself or enjoy one's pastime in, a meaning more common in late Vedic texts, the Epics and Gryhasutra literature, its meaning in post-Vedic era is more a form of rest house or temple or monastery in ascetic traditions of India for a group of monks. It referred to a hall that were used as temples or where monks met and some walked about. In performance arts context, the term means the theatre, convent or temple compound to meet, perform or relax in, it referred to a form of temple or monastery construction in Buddhism and Jainism, wherein the design has a central hall and attached separated shrines for residence either for monks or for gods and some sacred figure such as Tirthankaras or the Buddha or a Guru.
The word means a Jain or Hindu temple or "dwelling, waiting place" in many medieval era inscriptions and texts, from vi-har which means "to construct". It contrasts with Aranya or Aranna which means "forest". In medieval era, the term meant any monastery for Buddhist monks. Matha is another term for monastery in Indian religious tradition, today used for Hindu establishments; the northern Indian state of Bihar derives its name from the word "vihara", due to the abundance of Buddhist monasteries in that area. The word "vihara" has been borrowed in Malay where it is spelled "biara," and denotes a monastery or other non-Muslim place of worship. In Thailand and China ， "vihara" has a narrower meaning, designates a shrine hall or retreat house, it is called a "Wihan" in Thai, a "Vihear" in Khmer. In Burmese, means "monastery," but the native Burmese word kyaung is preferred. Monks wandering from place to place preaching and seeking alms stayed together in the sangha. In the Punjabi language, an open space inside a home is called a'vehra'.
During the 3rd-century BCE era of Ashoka, vihara yatras were travels aimed at enjoyments and hobbies such as hunting. These contrasted with dharma yatras. After Ashoka converted to Buddhism, states Lahiri, he started dharma yatras around mid 3rd century BCE instead of hedonistic royal vihara yatras; the early history of viharas is unclear. Monasteries in the form of caves are dated to centuries before the start of the common era, for Ajivikas and Jainas; the rock-cut architecture found in cave viharas from the 2nd-century BCE have roots in the Maurya Empire period. In and around the Bihar state of India are a group of residential cave monuments all dated to be from pre-common era, reflecting the Maurya architecture; some of these have Brahmi script inscription which confirms their antiquity, but the inscriptions were added to pre-existing caves. The oldest layer of Buddhist and Jain texts mention legends of the Buddha, the Jain Tirthankaras or sramana monks living in caves. If these records derived from an oral tradition reflect the significance of monks and caves in the times of the Buddha and the Mahavira cave residence tradition dates back to at least the 5th century BCE.
According to Allchin and Erdosy, the legend of First Buddhist Council is dated to a period just after the death of the Buddha. It mentions monks gathering at a cave near Rajgiri, this dates it in pre-Mauryan times. However, the square courtyard with cells architecture of vihara, state Allchin and Erdosy, is dated to the Mauryan period; the earlier monastic residences of Ajivikas, Buddhists and Jains were outside rock cliffs and made of temporary materials and these have not survived. The earliest known gift of immovable property for monastic purposes recorded in an Indian inscription is credited to Emperor Ashoka, it is a donation to the Ajivikas. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, this created competitive financial pressures on all traditions, including the Hindu Brahmins; this may have led to the development of viharas as shelters for monks, evolution in the Ashrama concept to agraharas or Hindu monasteries. These shelters were accompanied by donation of revenue from villages nearby, who w
Melchior Treub
Melchior Treub was a Dutch botanist. He worked at the Bogor Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg on the island of Java, south of Batavia, Dutch East Indies, gaining renown for his work on tropical flora, he founded the Bogor Agricultural Institute. He collected across many areas of Southeast Asia, he was born in Voorschoten, in 1873 he graduated in biology from the University of Leiden. Subsequently, he remained in Leiden as a botanical assistant. From 1880 to 1909 he was a botanist based in the Dutch East Indies. In 1879 he was appointed a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and was appointed as director of's Lands Plantentuin in Buitenzorg in the year 1880. Treub worked on tropical flora on Java and organized the Botanical Garden as a world-renowned scientific institution of botany. Under his leadership many crucial researches were completed on plant diseases of economic crops. In 1903 he established the Buitenzorg Landbouw Hogeschool, a school that evolved into the Bogor Agricultural Institute.
In 1905 he became director of the newly established Department of Agriculture in the Dutch East Indies. In 1907 Treub was the recipient of the Linnean Medal for his outstanding achievements in sciences; the Dutch "Society for the Promotion of the Physical Exploration of the Dutch Colonies" is sometimes referred to as the Treub Maatschappij. As a botanical collector, he traveled throughout the Indies, to the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Penang, he was interested in plant morphology and physiology, published treatises on the morphology of Balanophoraceae and Lycopodiaceae. He is credited for coining the term "protocorm" to describe the early stages in the germination of lycopods, he worked for nearly 30 years at the gardens before returning to the Netherlands in 1909 due to his worsening health. Dr. Treub settled on the village of Saint-Raphael on French Riviera, where he died in 1910; the liverwort genus. "This article incorporates information based on a translation of an equivalent article at the French Wikipedia"
Astana Giribangun
Astana Giribangun, is a mausoleum complex for the Suharto family of the former President of Indonesia. The mausoleum is located in Karang Bangun, Karanganyar Regency, Central Java province, it is on the slopes of Mount Lawu 35 kilometres east of the town of Surakarta. The archaic Javanese prose title translates as "Palace of the risen mountain"; the structure is in traditional Javanese architectural style and occupies parts of the Mangkunegaran Royal Cemetery complex. It is 300 metres from the burial sites of the Solonese royals Mangkunegara I, II and III. Former President Suharto was buried in Astana Giribangun on 29 January 2008 with full state military honours following his death in Jakarta the day before. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presided over the ceremony. Suharto was buried beside Mrs Tien Soeharto and her mother. In October 2010, in line with traditional Javanese practice, Suharto's family held a memorial ceremony at the Astana Giribangun 1,000 days after his death; the choice of the site caused some controversy at the time.
Many Javanese believed Ibu Suharto not to be of true noble blood but, rather, a commoner, the descendent of a faithful court servant. The Mangkunegaran Court reconciled this controversy by decreeing that Suharto could indeed build an Astana but that it could not be any higher than a pre-existing royal tomb, the Astana Mangadeg, near where the Astana Giribangun was to be established; the Astana Mangadeg was considered to be in a location having special spiritual features by many of the dukuns and soothsayers who had supported Suharto's kejawen practices of meditating and drawing charisma from shakti. Astana Giribangun. Panduan Peziarah. Yayasan Mangadeg Surakarta. 1996. ISBN unknown. Indonesia, Justine Varsulis. Lonely Planet, 2007: 206. ISBN 1-74104-435-9 Dewi Sri in Village Garb: Fertility and Ritual in Northeast Java, Journal article by Rens Heringa. Asian Folklore Studies 1997. Self and Self-Conduct among the Javanese "priyayi" Elite, translated from Indonesian by J. Joseph Errington. American Ethnologist, Vol. 11, No.
2, pp
Shamanism
Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with what they believe to be a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world. A shaman is someone, regarded as having access to, influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who enters into a trance state during a ritual, practices divination and healing; the word "shaman" originates from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. According to ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen, "the word is attested in all of the Tungusic idioms" such as Negidal, Udehe/Orochi, Ilcha, Orok and Ulcha, "nothing seems to contradict the assumption that the meaning'shaman' derives from Proto-Tungusic" and may have roots that extend back in time at least two millennia; the term was introduced to the west after Russian forces conquered the shamanistic Khanate of Kazan in 1552. The term "shamanism" was first applied by Western anthropologists as outside observers of the ancient religion of the Turks and Mongols, as well as those of the neighbouring Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking peoples.
Upon observing more religious traditions across the world, some Western anthropologists began to use the term in a broad sense. The term was used to describe unrelated magico-religious practices found within the ethnic religions of other parts of Asia, Africa and completely unrelated parts of the Americas, as they believed these practices to be similar to one another. Mircea Eliade writes, "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, the least hazardous, will be: shamanism ='technique of religious ecstasy'." Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness; the shaman enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds/dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements.
The shaman operates within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment. Beliefs and practices that have been categorized this way as "shamanic" have attracted the interest of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanism. In the 20th century, many Westerners involved in the counter-cultural movement have created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of indigenous religions from across the world, creating what has been termed neoshamanism or the neoshamanic movement, it has affected the development of many neopagan practices, as well as faced a backlash and accusations of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation when outside observers have tried to represent cultures to which they do not belong.
The word shamanism derives from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, meaning'one who knows'. The word "shaman" may have originated from the Evenki word šamán, most from the southwestern dialect spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples; the Tungusic term was subsequently adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum; the word was brought to Western Europe in the late 17th century by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen. Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China; the etymology of the Evenki word is sometimes connected to a Tungus root ša- "to know". This has been questioned on linguistic grounds: "The possibility cannot be rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular."
Other scholars assert that the word comes directly from the Manchu language, as such would be the only used English word, a loan from this language. However, Mircea Eliade noted that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages along with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the Tungusic word; this proposal has been critiqued since 1917. Ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen regards it as an "anachronism" and an "impossibility", nothing more than a "far-fetched etymology."21st-century anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomaskova argues that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains. She suggests that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, been told to Christian missionaries, explorers and colonial administrators with whom the people had increasing contact for centuries.
Ethnolinguists did not develop as a discipline nor achieve contact with these communities until the late 19th century, may have mistakenly "read backward" in time for the origin of this word. A shamaness is somet
Veneration of the dead
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living; some groups venerate their familial ancestors. Certain sects and religions, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, venerate saints as intercessors with God, as well as pray for departed souls in Purgatory. In Europe and Oceania, in some African and Afro-diasporic cultures, the goal of ancestor veneration is to ensure the ancestors' continued well-being and positive disposition towards the living, sometimes to ask for special favours or assistance; the social or non-religious function of ancestor veneration is to cultivate kinship values, such as filial piety, family loyalty, continuity of the family lineage. Ancestor veneration occurs in societies with every degree of social and technological complexity, it remains an important component of various religious practices in modern times.
Ancestor reverence is not the same as the worship of deities. In some Afro-diasporic cultures, ancestors are seen as being able to intercede on behalf of the living as messengers between humans and the gods; as spirits who were once human themselves, they are seen as being better able to understand human needs than would a divine being. In other cultures, the purpose of ancestor veneration is not to ask for favors but to do one's filial duty; some cultures believe that their ancestors need to be provided for by their descendants, their practices include offerings of food and other provisions. Others do not believe that the ancestors are aware of what their descendants do for them, but that the expression of filial piety is what is important. Most cultures who practice ancestor veneration do not call it "ancestor worship". In English, the word worship refers to the reverent love and devotion accorded a deity or God. However, in other cultures, this act of worship does not confer any belief that the departed ancestors have become some kind of deity.
Rather, the act is a way to respect and look after ancestors in their afterlives as well as seek their guidance for their living descendants. In this regard, many cultures and religions have similar practices; some may visit the graves of their parents or other ancestors, leave flowers and pray to them in order to honor and remember them, while asking their ancestors to continue to look after them. However, this would not be considered as worshipping them since the term worship shows no such meaning. In that sense the phrase ancestor veneration may convey a more accurate sense of what practitioners, such as the Chinese and other Buddhist-influenced and Confucian-influenced societies, as well as the African and European cultures see themselves as doing; this is consistent with the meaning of the word veneration in English, great respect or reverence caused by the dignity, wisdom, or dedication of a person. Although there is no accepted theory concerning the origins of ancestor veneration, this social phenomenon appears in some form in all human cultures documented so far.
David-Barrett and Carney claim that ancestor veneration might have served a group coordination role during human evolution, thus it was the mechanism that led to religious representation fostering group cohesion. Although some historians claim that ancient Egyptian society was a "death cult" because of its elaborate tombs and mummification rituals, it was the opposite; the philosophy that "this world is but a vale of tears" and that to die and be with God is a better existence than an earthly one was unknown among the ancient Egyptians. This was not to say; the Egyptian people loved the culture and religion of their daily lives so much that they wanted to continue them in the next—although some might hope for a better station in the Beautiful West. Tombs were housing in the Hereafter and so they were constructed and decorated, just as homes for the living were. Mummification was a way to preserve the corpse so the ka of the deceased could return to receive offerings of the things s/he enjoyed while alive.
If mummification was not affordable, a "ka-statue" in the likeness of the deceased was carved for this purpose. The Blessed Dead were collectively called the akhu, or "shining ones", they were described as "shining as gold in the belly of Nut" and were indeed depicted as golden stars on the roofs of many tombs and temples. The process by which a ka became an akh was not automatic upon death. However, if the ka was not properly prepared, this journey could be fraught with dangerous pitfalls and strange demons. If the heart was in balance with the Feather of Ma'at, the ka passed judgment and was granted access to the Beautiful West as an akh, ma’a heru to dwell among the gods and other akhu. At this point only was the ka deemed worthy to be venerated by the living through rites and offerings; those who became lost in the duat or deliberately tried to avoid judgment became the unfortunate mutu, t
