The Book of the Dead Spell for Becoming a Lotus
Spell 81A of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is titled "for being transformed into a lotus". The dead person speaks as the flower, "I am the pure lotus", rising from the sunlight to the nose of the sun god Ra. It appears in New Kingdom papyri such as the Papyrus of Ani, and says nothing about drinking the plant.
Key takeaways
- Spell 81A is one of a series of transformation spells in which the dead take on forms: a falcon, a heron, a swallow, a serpent, a crocodile, and a lotus.
- The text says “I am the lotus”, while the painting above it shows a human head rising out of the flower. Word and picture disagree on the same page.
- A second spell, 81B, is almost never quoted. In it the dead do not become the flower. They speak to her, and claim belonging by knowing her names.
- The spell has no earlier version in the Coffin Texts. It appears fully formed in the New Kingdom.
- The popular line “Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily” is not in Spell 15 or Spell 81, and has no traceable translator.
What Spell 81A actually says
What is Book of the Dead Spell 81A? A funerary spell titled “for being transformed into a lotus”, part of the transformation series, Spells 76 to 88, in which the dead take on the forms of a falcon, a heron, a swallow, a serpent, a crocodile and a lotus. Its purpose is rebirth with the rising sun. It survives in New Kingdom papyri including those of Ani and Nu in the British Museum.
It is short. That surprises people. The most famous lotus text in Egyptian religion is only a few lines long.
Here it is in E. A. Wallis Budge’s 1895 translation of the Papyrus of Ani, which is now in the public domain:
“I am the pure lotus which cometh forth from the god of light, the guardian of the nostrils of Ra, the guardian of the nose of Hathor. I advance and I hasten after him who is Horus. I am the pure one who cometh forth from the field.”
The dead person does not pray to the flower here. They become her. The first words in Egyptian are simply “I am the lotus”.
And the place the flower goes is the face of the sun god. She rises out of the light and takes her place at Ra’s nose, which is exactly where you see her held in countless tomb paintings, a blossom lifted to the face and breathed in.
The point is rebirth. The flower opens with the sun each morning, and to become her is to rise with it.
What the spell does not say matters too. It says nothing whatsoever about drinking, eating or preparing the plant. It is about becoming her, not consuming her.
One word, two meanings
Read the translations side by side and one word keeps changing.
Budge has the lotus as “the guardian of the nostrils of Ra”. Modern translators, Raymond Faulkner in 1972 and Stephen Quirke in 2013, render the same phrase as the lotus “which is at” Ra’s nose.
The Egyptian word underneath is a small one meaning roughly “belonging to” or “the one connected with”. It can carry either sense. In one reading the dead become the flower placed at the god’s face. In the other they become the one who watches over the god’s breath.
Almost nobody follows Budge now. But he was not being careless, only old-fashioned, and the Egyptian genuinely allows both.
The same is true of the light the flower comes from. Budge heard a god in the word and wrote “the god of light”. The modern translators hear weather and write “sunshine” or “sunlight”. The moderns are almost certainly right. The Victorian version is more beautiful. Both are worth knowing.
One more detail: only Ani’s copy adds “the nose of Hathor”. The Papyrus of Nu, another fine copy of the same spell, holds the flower to Ra alone. So there is no single fixed text of Spell 81A. There are manuscripts, and they differ.
When the words and the picture disagree
Look at the image at the top of this page. It is the painting that goes with the spell in the Papyrus of Ani: a lotus standing in a pool, and rising out of the open flower, a human head.
That is not what the words say. The text says “I am the lotus”. The painting shows someone emerging from one.
Two different images of the same moment, sitting side by side on one sheet of papyrus, and the scribe and the painter both let it stand.
A reasonable inference. Egyptian religious writing tolerates more than one answer on purpose. Spell 17 of the same book records rival explanations one after another, introduced with “or, as others say”. Read that way, becoming the flower and rising from her may simply both have been held true, rather than being a contradiction someone failed to fix.
Spell 81B, the one nobody quotes
There is a second lotus spell, and it is almost absent from everything written about Blue Lotus online.
It survives in the Papyrus of Paqrer, published by the Swiss Egyptologist Édouard Naville. In Budge’s 1901 translation it opens:
“Hail, thou lotus, thou type of the god Nefer-Temu! I am the man that knoweth you, and I know your names among the gods, the lords of the underworld, and I am one of you.”
In 81A you become the flower. In 81B you speak to her.
And the argument you make is a lovely one. I know your name, so I belong with you. The spell goes on to ask for a place among the lords of the West, and that the soul may go wherever it wishes and never be turned away.
Knowing her name is the key that opens the door. Of the two spells, this one is far closer to a relationship with the flower, and I find it much the more moving of the two.
The god she is addressed as, Nefertum, was the young god of the lotus in Memphis. I have written about him in the article on Nefertum.
A spell with no ancestor
Most Book of the Dead spells grew out of older ones. Many descend from the Coffin Texts, the spells painted inside Middle Kingdom coffins a few centuries earlier.
The lotus spell does not.
Raymond Faulkner’s complete translation of the Coffin Texts is full of the lotus. There are lotus pools the dead bathe in, a lotus boat they board, a heron of the lotus pool they become. But there is no spell for becoming a lotus.
The flower transformation appears as a spell of its own only in the New Kingdom, as far as the published corpus shows. Earlier coffins carry only a general permission to become “any god the man may wish”.
Every Amenti Alchemy elixir is named for this world of rebirth and the flower at the god’s face. Explore the elixirs.
The lotus under the throne of Osiris
She appears in the Book of the Dead in another place most people have looked at many times without seeing her.
In the judgment scene, the famous one with the scales, the heart and the feather, Osiris sits enthroned at the end. In front of him, a lotus grows out of the water beneath his throne, and standing on the open flower are the four children of Horus, the guardians of the dead.
It is in the Papyrus of Ani, in the Papyrus of Hunefer and in others. The same image was carved on a temple wall in the Osireion at Abydos, which I describe in the article on the Flower of Life at Abydos.
For the wider story of her place in Egyptian religion, the complete guide to Blue Lotus is the place to start.
The famous line that is not in the Book of the Dead
If you have read about Blue Lotus online you have almost certainly met this line: “Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily, to the nostrils of Ra.” It is usually credited to Book of the Dead Spell 15.
It is not in Spell 15. The texts of that spell contain no lotus at all. The lotus in Spell 15 is only in some of the paintings.
It is not a line from Budge either. His whole 1895 translation never uses the phrase “water lily”. He wrote “lotus” throughout. “Water lily” is modern botanical wording.
Its content is real. The idea of rising like Nefertum, the lotus at the nostrils of Ra, is genuinely ancient. It is in Pyramid Text 249, and a New Kingdom version appears in Book of the Dead Spell 174, which Budge translates as “I rise like Nefer-Tem, who is the lotus at the nostrils of Ra, when he cometh forth from the horizon each day.”
But the popular wording has no traceable translator and no traceable spell number. It circulates without a source.
That is the pattern I keep meeting with this flower. The real texts are stranger and more beautiful than the versions that get passed around, and they are right there to be read.
Frequently asked questions
What does Book of the Dead Spell 81A say?
It is the spell for being transformed into a lotus. The dead person speaks as the flower: in Budge's translation, "I am the pure lotus which cometh forth from the god of light, the guardian of the nostrils of Ra." Modern translators render the light as sunshine and place the lotus at Ra's nose.
What is the difference between Spell 81A and Spell 81B?
In Spell 81A the dead person becomes the lotus. In Spell 81B they address her, calling her the image of the god Nefertum, and claim a place among the gods because they know her names.
Does the Book of the Dead say to drink Blue Lotus?
No. Neither lotus spell mentions drinking, eating or preparing the plant. Spell 81A is about becoming the flower in order to be reborn with the rising sun.
Is the quote "Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily" from the Book of the Dead?
Not in that wording. It is not in Spell 15, and its phrase "water lily" is modern. The idea is ancient and appears in Pyramid Text 249 and Book of the Dead Spell 174, but the popular wording has no traceable translator.
Which papyri contain the lotus spell?
Spell 81A survives in New Kingdom papyri including the Papyrus of Ani and the Papyrus of Nu, both in the British Museum. Spell 81B survives in the Papyrus of Paqrer.
This article is for educational and cultural interest. It is not medical advice. Blue Lotus preparations are for adults 18 and over.
Begin Tonight
“I am the pure lotus which cometh forth from the god of light.” Book of the Dead, Spell 81A, Papyrus of Ani, translated by E. A. Wallis Budge, 1895
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