Page 40 - MML - Journal - Centenary Edition - Vol. 01 / 2023

All rituals agree, however, that he received his death-blow in the East, and one is tempted at first to regard this as being so arranged as to allow the Worshipful Master to conduct the ceremony and is a mistake. Reference to the myth of Osiris, however, shows that in the annual mourning for the god they lamented "him who was born on the right side of the world, and who perished on the left."
Now in all texts the front of the world was the South (khent), the West is the right side (unemi), and the East is the left (abti); thus, Osiris was mourned as one who was born in the West and perished in the East, obviously in reference to the moon.
These facts would supply an explanation of the statement in all rituals that Hiram Abif was killed in the East, and, incidentally, would be evidence that the Scotch ritual is wrong in introducing the West as one of the entrances: for though the North and South may be added in another (solar) mythology as places where the god received injury, the West could not be associated with the East in the same sense, but as the birth-place of the older god would rather tend to be omitted as in the Indian English Ritual.
The Grip of the Lion or Lion-like hold:
There is a regrettable tendency in some rituals to lose this landmark, for landmark it is. Thus, we find throughout the “Book of the Dead” the Supreme God, whether Ra or Osiris, appealed to as the "god in the Lion form"; always in such cases the prayer is that the soul of the departed be permitted to "come forth" in the East, rising with the Sun from the darkness of the grave. The lion, in Egypt, as nowadays, was the personification of strength and power, but it was almost exclusively associated with the regeneration of the Sun and so with the risen.
Thus Sbu (Anheyu, "the Lifter") who, as the light of the Dawn, was said to lift up the
sky-goddess from the arms of the sleeping Earth, is often represented as a Lion, for only through him was the rebirth of the Sun made possible. Osiris is called the Lion of Yesterday, and Ra the Lion of To-morrow; the bier of Osiris is always represented as having the head and legs of the lion, and so on.
It was probably from the same association of ideas that the first sign of the Zodiac entered by the sun after the summer solstice was named the Lion, though here the power of Osiris in causing the inundation of the Nile, which began at this season, may also have been allegorized.
The propriety of the expression "lion-like grip" or "hold" in specifying that which raised the candidate from a figurative death is evident from the above. It has survived from the Solar cult and is eminently a landmark which should be restored to all rituals.
The Morning Star:
This is a figurative allusion to Sirius or Sothis, the Dog-Star, which by its rising at dawn brought tidings of the approaching inundation, and so Peace and Salvation to the whole of Egypt. It was only the inundation of the Nile which kept Egypt from becoming a desert like the surrounding country.
The Words:
It should be noted not only that there are alternative words, but that they have the same general form, their consonants being identical, suggesting that they are but slightly different forms of the same word. It is more than probable that one of these words was that used by the "Ancients" and the other by the "Moderns", and that they were bracketed at the time of the Union.
In their present form the first has no meaning
Madras Masonic Journal Vol. 01 / 2023 - Centenary Year Edition
39 A Publication of Madras Masters Lodge No. 103, GLI