Ka (kꜣ)
Vital essence — the double
Ka — the vital double, the life-force that distinguishes a living person from a corpse, transmitted from a creator-god (Khnum on his potter's wheel; Atum through breath). At death the ka does not perish; it requires sustenance, which is the entire reason for the offering-cult and the funerary endowment. Tombs are addressed to the ka, not to the deceased as such: 'a thousand of bread, a thousand of beer, for the ka of N.'
Point 2 of 9 in Egyptian Nine-Part Soul
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Pyramid Texts, Utterance 600 (Khnum and the ka) (primary_canonical)
Allen's Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Utterance 600 (Sethe/Faulkner numbering: Utterance 600), is the Khnum-and-ka passage in the offering and creator context; it documents the ka as a vital/kinship principle that receives sustenance, while the nine-part count remains a later synthesis.
Allen, Genesis in Egypt, ch. 4 (secondary)