Shai

**Shai**


 * Other Names:**

Shay, Schai, Schay, Shait, Psais


 * Meaning of Name:**

This god’s name comes from the ancient Egyptian word for “appoint” or “command” (//sha//.) Another translation of his name could be “That Which Is Ordained.”


 * Hieroglyphics:**

or


 * Titles:**

"He Who Gives Life"


 * Family:**

Shai's wife was Meskhenet or Renenutet.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Shai was related to the “destiny,” “fate,” or even the “luck” of a human being. He was both a personification of these concepts as well as a deity - the Egyptians believed that he was “born” with each individual, like a guardian angel, yet he was also a god. As a god of destiny and fortune, Shai could be a positive or negative influence. He could protect an individual, or he could bring misfortune down on the individual. The Egyptians believed that he followed a person from the moment of birth through to the judgment in the afterlife. One passage from the Book of the Dead stresses the futility of pursuing riches by pointing out that no one can ignore Shai, i.e. what is fated. Ignoring this, Ramses II stated that he was the "Lord of Shai," an indication of his power to control his own fate.

Though he was thought to be a god, Shai was sometimes depicted as a goddess instead, or perhaps changed genders to accommodate the people he followed. Related to birth in the world and rebirth in the underworld, he was often partnered with three specific goddesses - Meskhenet, goddess of the birth brick and fate, Meskhenet, the goddess who would give a child his or her true name, and Taweret, a protective goddess of childbirth. The hieratic pharaoh Akenaten tried to link Shai with the Aten when he stated that "the Aten is the Shai who gives life." Shai was pictured as a man, sometimes with the head of a cobra, a woman, or as a cobra.

During Ptolemaic Egypt, Shai, as the god of fate, was identified with the Greek god Agathodaemon, who was the god of fortune-telling. Thus, since Agathodaemon was considered to be a serpent, and the word “Shai” was also the Egyptian word for “pig,” in the Hellenic period, Shai was sometimes depicted as a serpent-headed pig, known to Egyptologists as the “Shai animal.”

Egyptian Deities - S