Ra begot the twins Shu and Tefnut without a consort — Shu sneezed forth from his nostrils and Tefnut spat from his lips, the first gods of air and moisture who would separate earth from sky.
⚠ Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts originally attribute this act to Atum; Ra inherits the parentage through the Atum-Ra theological merger at Heliopolis.
Bastet was born a daughter of Ra, one of the divine felines who served as the sun god's protector and the living embodiment of his burning eye.
Ra fathered Hathor, the Golden One, whose beauty and ferocity alike descended from the sun god — she who could charm with music and destroy with fire.
Ma'at is the daughter of Ra, embodying the cosmic order and truth that the sun god established at creation and sustains through his daily journey.
Neith is the mother of Ra in Saite theology, the primordial goddess who gave birth to the sun god from the waters of chaos before any other deity existed.
⚠ The Saite tradition claiming Neith as Ra's mother is a Late Period theological development. The dominant Heliopolitan cosmogony gives Ra no mother, having him emerge self-created from the primordial waters.
Ra emerged self-created from Nun, the primordial waters of chaos, bringing light and order into existence at the first dawn.
⚠ The Saite tradition (Proclus, Timaeus Commentary) names Neith rather than Nun as Ra's origin. Heliopolitan sources treat Ra as self-created from the primordial waters.
Sekhmet is a daughter of Ra and a manifestation of his Eye, sent by him to punish rebellious humanity in the Destruction of Mankind myth.
Thoth came forth from Ra, emerging from the brow of the sun god as the moon to illuminate the night sky and serve as Ra's deputy in the hours of darkness.
⚠ Coffin Text spells present Thoth as emanating from Ra, but Hermopolitan theology treats him as self-created, and the Contendings narrative derives him from Horus and Set.
Amun merged with Ra and Atum during the New Kingdom, the hidden god of Thebes absorbing the entire Heliopolitan solar theology to become Amun-Ra, supreme deity of the Egyptian empire.
The Aten began as the visible disk of Ra, the golden face of the sun crossing the sky, before Akhenaten elevated it above all other gods and declared the disk itself the sole divine power in Egypt.
Bennu is the ba (soul) of Ra, a sacred heron that embodies the sun god's cycle of death and rebirth.
The Bucheum stelae describe Buchis as a solar manifestation of Ra, his coat said to change color every hour as the sun moved across the sky, reflecting the god's daily journey from dawn to dusk.
The Eye of Ra separated from the sun god Ra as an independent feminine force, capable of wandering to distant lands and unleashing devastating fire against enemies of the divine order.
Khepri is the morning manifestation of Ra, the great scarab who pushes the newborn sun above the eastern horizon each dawn, embodying the solar cycle's eternal renewal and the power of coming-into-being.
Khnum and Ra merged as Khnum-Ra at Esna, where the ram-headed potter who shaped bodies on his wheel became one with the sun whose light animated them.
Mnevis is the sacred bull of Heliopolis, a living incarnation of Ra chosen for its jet-black coat and housed in the sun temple where it received worship as the earthly body of the sun god.
Montu and Ra merged as Montu-Ra in pre-Amun Thebes, the falcon war god absorbing the sun's radiance to rule as the city's supreme deity before Amun's rise eclipsed him.
Memphite theology absorbed Ra's solar creative power into Ptah, yielding the composite Ptah-Ra who united the intellectual creation of the craftsman god with the solar radiance of the sun god.
Sobek merged with Ra as Sobek-Ra at the Faiyum and Kom Ombo, the crocodile god rising from the Nile waters each dawn as the living sun, primordial hunger and solar radiance united in one fearsome deity.
Atum and Ra merged as Atum-Ra in Heliopolitan theology, identifying the primordial creator Atum with the sun god as the evening and setting sun.
Horus and Ra merged as Ra-Horakhty, "Ra-Horus of the Two Horizons," representing the sun god in his full daytime splendor as a falcon.
Set stands at the prow of Ra's solar barque each night, spearing the serpent Apophis to protect the sun god during his perilous journey through the Duat.
Thoth sails with Ra through the underworld each night, wielding his magic to repel Apophis and navigating the solar barque through the twelve perilous hours of darkness.
Aker, the double-lion earth god, guards the eastern and western horizons through which Ra's solar barque enters and exits the Duat each night.
Mehen coils his serpentine body around the shrine of Ra's solar barque each night, forming a living magical shield that protects the sun god during his perilous journey through the Duat.
Ra and Apophis wage an eternal war in the underworld each night, the chaos serpent coiling to swallow the solar barque and plunge creation into darkness, and Ra cutting through the serpent's body to ensure the dawn.
Thoth serves as Ra's vizier and deputy, governing the night sky when the sun god descends to the underworld and maintaining the cosmic records of divine judgment on Ra's behalf.
Ra wept, and from the tears that fell from his eyes came remet — humankind — born of the sun god's sorrow, forever called by the echo of his weeping.
Ra and Helios were actively syncretized under the Ptolemies, worshipped as a single solar deity in temple cults that merged the Egyptian and Greek traditions of the sun's daily voyage across the sky.
Ra, aged and weary of ruling humankind after the destruction he had unleashed, ascended to the heavens upon Nut's back, withdrawing from the earth forever and entrusting its governance to Thoth and the younger gods.
Ra passes through the Akhet twice each day, descending through the western horizon into the Duat at dusk and rising triumphant through the eastern horizon at dawn, his daily cycle of death and rebirth anchored to this threshold between worlds.
The gilded pyramidion atop obelisks and pyramids recreated the Benben stone catching Ra's first rays, each sunrise repeating the primordial moment when light first fell upon the newly emerged mound.
Ra sails through the twelve hours of the Duat each night aboard his solar barque, illuminating the dead, defeating the forces of chaos, and emerging reborn at dawn to renew the cycle of creation.
Ra sent Hathor to punish rebellious humanity, and she raged south as Sekhmet wading through human blood until Ra flooded the fields with seven thousand jars of beer dyed red with ochre, tricking her into drinking herself into a stupor and sparing what remained of mankind.
Ra dispatched Heket among the divine birth attendants in the Westcar Papyrus, sending the frog goddess to hasten the delivery of triplets destined to found the Fifth Dynasty and serve his cult.
Isis tricked the aging Ra into revealing his secret true name by fashioning a serpent that bit him, gaining power over the sun god through knowledge of his hidden identity.
Maat stands at the prow of Ra's solar barque, her presence guiding the sun god along the rightful course through sky and underworld, cosmic order made manifest as navigator of the celestial journey.
Pyramid Texts declare 'Nefertem is the lotus at the nose of Ra,' identifying the lotus god with the fragrant flower the sun god held to his face each morning to revive himself for the new day.
Nut swallows Ra each evening and gives birth to him each dawn, her star-covered body forming the sky through which the sun god travels.
Ra's nightly journey through the Duat brings him into union with Osiris at the midnight hour, their merging as the 'United One' enabling Ra's renewal and the sustenance of the dead.
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