The swastika (as a character 卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia, where it has been and remains a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.[1][2][3][4] In the Western world, it was historically a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck,[5] but in the 1930s, it became the main feature of Nazi symbolism as an emblem of Aryan race identity, and as a result, it has become stigmatized in the West by association with ideas of racism, hate, and mass murder.[5][6]
The swastika is an icon widely found in human history and the modern world.[4][7] It is alternatively known in various European languages as the Hakenkreuz, gammadion cross, cross cramponnée, croix gammée, fylfot, or tetraskelion, and in Japan as the Manji. A swastika generally takes the form of a rotationally symmetrical arrangement (a cross) with four equally spaced legs of identical length each bent at 90 degrees in a uniform direction to create a pattern akin to a four-armed spiral.[8][9] It is found in the archeological remains of the Indus Valley Civilization and Mesopotamia, as well as in early Byzantine and Christian artwork.[4][7]
The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक), and denotes a “conducive to well being or auspicious”.[10][7] In Hinduism, the clockwise symbol is called swastika symbolizing surya (sun) and prosperity, while the counterclockwise symbol is called sauvastika symbolizing night or tantric aspects of Kali.[7] In Jainism, a swastika is the symbol for Suparshvanatha – the 7th of 24 Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers and saviours), while in Buddhism it symbolizes the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.[7][11][12]
The swastika was adopted by several organizations in pre–World War I Europe and later, and most notably, by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany prior to World War II. It was used by the Nazi Party to symbolize German nationalistic pride. To Jews and the enemies of Nazi Germany, it became a symbol of antisemitism and terror.[5] In many Western countries, the swastika is viewed as a symbol of racial supremacy and intimidation because of its association with Nazism.[6][13][14] The reverence for the swastika symbol, in some cultures in contrast to the stigma in others, has led to misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and mutual accusations.[15][16]
Etymology and nomenclature
The word swastika has been in use in English since the 1870s, replacing gammadion (from Greek γαμμάδιον). It is alternatively spelled in contemporary texts as svastika,[17] while in the 19th- and early 20th-century, alternate spellings such as suastika were occasionally used.[18] It was derived from the Sanskrit term (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक), which is transliterated svastika under the commonly used IAST transliteration system, but is pronounced closer to “swastika” when letters are used with their English values. The first attested use of the word swastika in a European text is found in 1871 with the publications of Heinrich Schliemann, who while crudely digging the Hisarlik mound near the Aegean Sea coast, for the lost history of Troy (Trojan war), discovered over 1,800 ancient samples of the swastika symbol and its variants. Schliemann linked his findings to the Sanskrit swastika.[13][19][20]
The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti which is composed of su, meaning “good, well”, and asti meaning “it is, there is”.[21] The word swasti occurs frequently in the Vedas, and it means “well, good, auspicious, luck, success, prosperity”.[22][23] Swastika is a derived word and connotes a form of welcome or a sign of something “associated with well-being”.[22] According to Monier-Williams, a majority of scholars consider it a solar symbol, and in the ancient Indian texts the base swasti is equivalent to “may it be well with thee! hail! health! adieu! so be it!”.[22] The sign implies something fortunate, lucky or auspicious, and when applied to entrances, doors, mandalas or object it denotes or reminds of auspiciousness or well-being.[22]
The earliest known textual use of the word swastika is in Panini’s Ashtadhyayi, where it is used to explain one of the Sanskrit grammar rules, in the context of a type of identifying mark on cow’s ear.[21] Most scholarship suggests Panini lived in or before mid 4th-century BCE (floruit),[24][25] possibly in 6th or 5th century BCE.[26][27]
Other names for the symbol include:
- hooked cross (German: Hakenkreuz), angled cross (Winkelkreuz) or crooked cross (Krummkreuz).
- cross cramponned, cramponnée, or cramponny, in heraldry, as each arm resembles a Crampon or angle-iron (German: Winkelmaßkreuz).
- fylfot, chiefly in heraldry and architecture.
- gammadion, tetragammadion (Greek: τετραγαμμάδιον), or cross gammadion (Latin: crux gammata; French: croix gammée), as each arm resembles the Greek letter Γ (gamma).[8]
- tetraskelion (Greek: τετρασκέλιον), literally meaning “four-legged”, especially when composed of four conjoined legs (compare triskelion [Greek: τρισκέλιον]).[28]
- whirling logs (Navajo, native american): can denote abundance, prosperity, healing, and luck.[29]
Appearance
Although all swastikas are bent crosses based on a chiral symmetry, they appear with different geometric details: as compact crosses with short legs, as crosses with large arms and as motifs in a pattern of unbroken lines. One distinct representation of a swastika, as a double swastika or swastika made of squares, appears in a Nepalese silver mohar coin of 1685, kingdom of Patan (NS 805) KM# 337 [32]
Chirality describes an absence of reflective symmetry, with the existence of two versions that are mirror images of each other. The mirror-image forms are typically described as:
- left-facing (卍) and right-facing (卐);
- left-hand (卍) and right-hand (卐).
The left-facing version is distinguished in some traditions and languages as a distinct symbol from the right-facing “swastika”, and is more correctly called the “sauwastika“.
The compact swastika can be seen as a chiral irregular icosagon (20-sided polygon) with fourfold (90°) rotational symmetry. Such a swastika proportioned on a 5 × 5 square grid and with the broken portions of its legs shortened by one unit can tile the plane by translation alone. The Nazi Hakenkreuz used a 5 × 5 diagonal grid, but with the legs unshortened.[33]
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Croix gammée
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Broken sun cross
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Crux hamata
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Manji
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Hakenkreuz
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Gammadion cross
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Cross cramponnée
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Double-arm swastika
Written characters
The sauwastika were adopted as a standard character in Sanskrit. “卍” (pinyin: wàn) and as such entered various other East Asian languages, including Chinese script. In Japanese the symbol is called “卍” (Hepburn: manji) or “卍字” (manji).
The sauwastika is included in the Unicode character sets of two languages. In the Chinese block it is U+534D 卍 (left-facing) and U+5350 for the swastika 卐 (right-facing);[34] The latter has a mapping in the original Big5 character set,[35] but the former does not (although it is in Big5+[36]). In Unicode 5.2, two swastika symbols and two sauwastikas were added to the Tibetan block: swastika U+0FD5 ࿕ right-facing svasti sign, U+0FD7 ࿗ right-facing svasti sign with dots, and sauwastikas U+0FD6 ࿖ left-facing svasti sign, U+0FD8 ࿘ left-facing svasti sign with dots.[37]
Hypothesis of origin
The swastika is a repeating design, said to have been created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via cultural diffusion or an explanation along the lines of Carl Jung‘s collective unconscious.[citation needed]
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European hypotheses of the swastika are often treated in conjunction with cross symbols in general, such as the sun cross of pagan Bronze Age religion. Beyond its certain presence in the “proto-writing” symbol systems, such as the Vinca script,[38] which appeared during the Neolithic,[39] nothing certain is known about the symbol’s origin.
There are a number of speculative hypotheses. One hypothesis is that the cross symbols and the swastika share a common origin in simply symbolizing the sun. Another hypothesis is that the four arms of the cross represent four aspects of nature – the sun, wind, water, soil. Some have said the four arms of cross are four seasons, where the division for 90-degree sections correspond to the solstices and equinoxes.[citation needed]
According to Reza Assasi, the swastika is a geometric pattern in the sky representing the north ecliptic pole centred to Zeta Draconis. He argues that this primitive astrological symbol was later called the four-horse chariot of Mithra in ancient Iran and represented the centre of Ecliptic in the star map and also demonstrates that in Iranian mythology, the cosmos was believed to be pulled by four heavenly horses revolving around a fixed centre on clockwise direction possibly because of a geocentric understanding of an astronomical phenomenon called axial precession. He suggests that this notion was transmitted to the west and flourished in Roman mithraism in which this symbol appears in Mithraic iconography and astrological representations.[40]
Carl Sagan in his book Comet (1985) reproduces Han period Chinese manuscript (the Book of Silk, 2nd century BC) that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet’s rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world.[41] Bob Kobres in his 1992 paper Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse contends that the swastika like comet on the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas was labeled a “long tailed pheasant star” (Di-Xing) because of its resemblance to a bird’s foot or footprint,[42] the latter comparison also being drawn by J.F.K. Hewitt’s observation on page 145 of Primitive Traditional History: vol. 1.[43] as well as an article concerning carpet decoration in Good Housekeeping.[44] Kobres goes on to suggest an association of mythological birds and comets also outside China.[42]
In Life’s Other Secret (1999), Ian Stewart suggests the ubiquitous swastika pattern arises when parallel waves of neural activity sweep across the visual cortex during states of altered consciousness, producing a swirling swastika-like image, due to the way quadrants in the field of vision are mapped to opposite areas in the brain.[45]
Alexander Cunningham suggested that the Buddhist use of the shape arose from a combination of Brahmi characters abbreviating the words su astí.[22]
Prehistory
According to Mukti Jain, the symbol is part of “an intricate meander pattern of joined up swastikas” found on a late paleolithic figurine of a bird, carved from mammoth ivory, found in Mezine, Ukraine and dated to 15,000 years old. These engraved objects were found near phallic objects, which states Jain may support the idea that the meandering pattern of swastika was a fertility symbol.[47] However it has also been suggested that this swastika may be a stylized picture of a stork in flight and not the true swastika that is in use today.[48]
In England, neolithic or Bronze Age stone carvings of the symbol have been found on Ilkley Moor.
Mirror-image swastikas (clockwise and anti-clockwise) have been found on ceramic pottery in the Devetashka cave, Bulgaria, dated to 6,000 BCE.[50]
Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3,000 BCE.[51] Investigators have also found seals with “mature and geometrically ordered” swatiskas which date from prior to the Indus Valley Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Their efforts have traced references to swastikas in the Vedas at about that time period. The investigators put forth the theory that the swastika traveled from India via Tartar trade routes through Kamchatka to the Americas, where it appeared in both Aztec and Mayan civilizations. It also moved westward, according to these researchers, from India to Finland, Scandinavia, the British Highlands and other parts of Europe.[52]
Swastikas have also been found on pottery in archaeological digs in Africa, in the area of Kush and on pottery at the Jebel Barkal temples,[53] in Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus (Koban culture), and in Neolithic China in the Majiabang,[54]Majiayao,[55] Dawenkou and Xiaoheyan cultures.[56]
Other Iron Age attestations of the swastika can be associated with Indo-European cultures such as the Illyrians,[57] Indo-Iranians, Celts, Greeks, Germanic peoples and Slavs. In Sintashta culture‘s “Country of Towns“, ancient Indo-European settlements in southern Russia, it has been found a great concentration of some of the oldest swastika patterns. Chief archeologist Gennady Zdanovich identifies the swastika as a “symbol of the universe”.[58]
The swastika is also seen in Egypt during the Coptic period. Textile number T.231-1923 held at the V&A Museum in London includes small swastikas in its design. This piece was found at Qau-el-Kebir, near Asyut, and is dated between AD 300 and 600.[59][60]
The Tierwirbel (the German for “animal whorl” or “whirl of animals”[61]) is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia, the Eurasian Steppe, and later also in Iron Age Scythian and European (Baltic[62] and Germanic) culture, showing rotational symmetric arrangement of an animal motif, often four birds’ heads. Even wider diffusion of this “Asiatic” theme has been proposed, to the Pacific and even North America (especially Moundville).[63]
Historical use
Asia
In Asia, the swastika symbol first appears in the archaeological record around[51] 3000 BCE in the Indus Valley Civilization.[64][65] It also appears in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In all these cultures the swastika symbol does not appear to occupy any marked position or significance, but appears as just one form of a series of similar symbols of varying complexity. In the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, the swastika was a symbol of the revolving sun, infinity, or continuing creation.[66][67]
It is one of most common symbols found on Mesopotamian coins.[7]
The icon has been of spiritual significance to Indian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.[4][7] The use of the swastika by the Bön faith of Tibet, as well as Chinese Taoism, can also be traced to Buddhist influence. In Thailand, the word Sawaddi is normally used as a greeting which simply means “hello”; Sawaddi-ka (feminine) and Sawaddi-krup (masculine). Sawaddi derives from the Sanskrit word swasti and its meaning is a combination of the words prosperity, luck, security, glory, and good.[citation needed]
Hinduism
The swastika is an important Hindu symbol.[4][7] The word is ancient, derived from three Sanskrit roots “su” (good), “asti” (exists, there is, to be) and “ka” (make) and has meant a “making of goodness” or “marker of goodness”.[1] The icon connotes and reminds the viewer of something “conducive to well-being”, “make good”, prosperity and dharmic auspiciousness. The swastika symbol is commonly used before entrances or on doorways of homes or temples, to mark the starting page of financial statements, and mandala constructed for rituals such as weddings or welcoming a new born.[7][68]
In the diverse traditions within Hinduism, both the clockwise and counter-clockwise swastika are found, with different meaning. The clockwise or right hand icon is called swastika, while the counter clockwise or left hand is called sauvastika.[7] The clockwise swastika is a solar symbol (Surya), mirroring the motion of Sun in India (the northern hemisphere) where it appears to enter from east, then south, exiting to the west.[7] The counterclockwise sauvastika is less used, connotes the night and in tantric traditions it is an icon for goddess Kali, the terrifying form of Devi Durga.[7] The symbol also reminds and symbolizes activity, karma, motion, wheel, lotus in some contexts.[1][2] Its symbolism for motion and sun may be from shared prehistoric cultural roots, according to Norman McClelland.[69]
The Arya Samaj is of the opinion that swastik is ‘OM’ written in the ancient Brahmi script.[citation needed]
Buddhism
In Buddhism, the swastika symbol is considered auspicious footprints of the Buddha.[7][11] It is an aniconic symbol for the Buddha in many parts of Asia, states Adrian Snodgrass, but also a homologous with the dhamma wheel.[2] The shape symbolizes eternal cycling, a theme found in samsara doctrine of Buddhism.[2]
The swastika symbol is common in esoteric tantric traditions of Buddhism, along with Hinduism, where it is found with Chakra theories and other meditative aids.[68] The clockwise symbol is more common, and contrasts with the counter clockwise version common in the Tibetan Bon tradition and locally called yungdrung.[70]
Jainism
In Jainism, it is a symbol of the seventh tīrthaṅkara, Suparśvanātha.[7] In the Śvētāmbara tradition, it is also one of the aṣṭamaṅgala or eight auspicious symbols. All Jain temples and holy books must contain the swastika and ceremonies typically begin and end with creating a swastika mark several times with rice around the altar. Jains use rice to make a swastika in front of statues and then put an offering on it, usually a ripe or dried fruit, a sweet (Hindi: मिठाई miṭhāī), or a coin or currency note. The four arms of the swastika symbolize the four places where a soul could be reborn in the cycle of birth and death – svarga “heaven”, naraka “hell”, manushya “humanity” or tiryancha “as flora or fauna” – before the soul attains moksha “salvation” as a siddha, having ended the cycle of birth and death and become omniscient.[3]
East Asian traditions
The paired swastika symbols are included, at least since the Liao Dynasty (AD 907–1125), as part of the Chinese writing system (卍 and 卐) and are variant characters for 萬 or 万 (wàn in Mandarin, man in Korean, Cantonese, and Japanese, vạn in Vietnamese) meaning “all” or “eternity” (lit. myriad). The swastika marks the beginning of many Buddhist scriptures. In East Asian countries, the left-facing character is often used as symbol for Buddhism and marks the site of a Buddhist temple on maps.
In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean the swastika is also a homonym of the number 10,000, and is commonly used to represent the whole of creation, e.g. “the myriad things” in the Dao De Jing. During the Chinese Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu Zetian (684–704) decreed that the swastika would also be used as an alternative symbol of the Sun.
When the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in the 8th century, the swastika was adopted into the Japanese language and culture. It is commonly referred as the manji (lit. “Man-character”). Since the Middle Ages, it has been used as a mon by various Japanese families such as Tsugaru clan, Hachisuka clan or around 60 clans that belong to Tokugawa clan.[71] On Japanese maps, a swastika (left-facing and horizontal) is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple. The right-facing swastika is often referred to as the gyaku manji (逆卍, lit. “reverse swastika”) or migi manji (右卍, lit. “right swastika”), and can also be called kagi jūji (鉤十字, literally “hook cross”).
In Chinese and Japanese art, the swastika is often found as part of a repeating pattern. One common pattern, called sayagata in Japanese, comprises left- and right-facing swastikas joined by lines.[72] As the negative space between the lines has a distinctive shape, the sayagata pattern is sometimes called the key fret motif in English.
As a pottery graph of unknown provision and meaning the swastika-like sign is known in Chinese Neolithic culture (2400–2000 BCE, Liu wan 柳湾, Qinghai province).
Armenia
In Armenia the swastika is called the “arevakhach” and “kerkhach” (Armenian: կեռխաչ)[73][dubious ] and is the ancient symbol of eternity and eternal light (i.e. God). Swastikas in Armenia were founded on petroglyphs from the copper age, predating the bronze age. During the bronze age it was depicted on cauldrons, belts, medallions and other items.[74] Among the oldest petroglyphs is the seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet – “E” (which means “is” or “to be”) – depicted as a half-swastika.
Swastikas can also be seen on early Medieval churches and fortresses, including the principal tower in Armenia’s historical capital city of Ani.[73] The same symbol can be found on Armenian carpets, cross-stones (khachkar) and in medieval manuscripts, as well as on modern monuments as a symbol of eternity.[75]
Europe
Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artifacts from Iron Age Europe – Armenian arevakhach (Armenian: Արևախաչ, արև arev “sun” + խաչ xač “cross”, “sun cross”),[73][76][77] Greco-Roman, Illyrians,[78] Etruscan, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic.[8]
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Etruscan pendant with swastika symbols, Bolsena, Italy, 700–650 BCE, Louvre Museum
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Svastika on a Roman mosaic in Pula, Croatia
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Svastika on a Roman mosaic in Veli Brijun, Croatia
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Swastiska on the Snoldelev Rune Stone, Denmark.
Greco-Roman antiquity
Ancient Greek architectural, clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs. There are also gold plate fibulae from the 8th century BCE decorated with an engraved swastika.[79] Related symbols in classical Western architecture include the cross, the three-legged triskele or triskelion and the rounded lauburu. The swastika symbol is also known in these contexts by a number of names, especially gammadion,[80] or rather the tetra-gammadion. The name gammadion comes from its being seen as being made up of four Greek gamma (Γ) letters. Ancient Greek architectural designs are replete with the interlinking symbol.
In Greco-Roman art and architecture, and in Romanesque and Gothic art in the West, isolated swastikas are relatively rare, and the swastika is more commonly found as a repeated element in a border or tessellation. The swastika often represented perpetual motion, reflecting the design of a rotating windmill or watermill. A meander of connected swastikas makes up the large band that surrounds the Augustan Ara Pacis.
A design of interlocking swastikas is one of several tessellations on the floor of the cathedral of Amiens, France.[81] A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif,[82] and can be seen in more recent buildings as a neoclassical element. A swastika border is one form of meander, and the individual swastikas in such a border are sometimes called Greek keys. There have also been swastikas found on the floors of Pompeii.[83]
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Bronze Age Mycenaean “doll” with human, solar and tetragammadion (swastika) symbols, Louvre Museum
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Greek helmet with swastika marks on the top part (circled), 350-325 BC from Taranto, found at Herculanum. Cabinet des Médailles, Paris.
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Two sauwastikas (opposite-facing swastikas) on an ancient Greek kantharos, Attica, ca. 780 BCE
Celts
The bronze frontispiece of a ritual pre-Christian (c. 350–50 BCE) shield found in the River Thames near Battersea Bridge (hence “Battersea Shield“) is embossed with 27 swastikas in bronze and red enamel.[84] An Ogham stone found in Anglish, Co Kerry, Ireland (CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a cross pattée and two swastikas.[85] The Book of Kells (ca. 800) contains swastika-shaped ornamentation. At the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire, there is a swastika-shaped pattern engraved in a stone known as the Swastika Stone.[86]
Germanic Iron Age
The swastika shape (also called a fylfot) appears on various Germanic Migration Period and Viking Age artifacts, such as the 3rd-century Værløse Fibula from Zealand, Denmark, the Gothic spearhead from Brest-Litovsk, today in Belarus, the 9th-century Snoldelev Stone from Ramsø, Denmark, and numerous Migration Period bracteates drawn left-facing or right-facing.[87]
The pagan Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.[88][not in citation given] The swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in Kent, in a grave of about the 6th century.
Hilda Ellis Davidson theorized that the swastika symbol was associated with Thor, possibly representing his hammer Mjolnir – symbolic of thunder – and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun cross.[88] Davidson cites “many examples” of the swastika symbol from Anglo-Saxon graves of the pagan period, with particular prominence on cremation urns from the cemeteries of East Anglia.[88] Some of the swastikas on the items, on display at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, are depicted with such care and art that, according to Davidson, it must have possessed special significance as a funerary symbol.[88] The runic inscription on the 8th-century Sæbø sword has been taken as evidence of the swastika as a symbol of Thor in Norse paganism.
Illyrians
The swastika was widespread among the Illyrians, symbolizing the Sun. The Sun cult was the main Illyrian cult; the Sun was represented by a swastika in clockwise motion, and it stood for the movement of the Sun.[89]
Slavic
According to painter Stanisław Jakubowski the “little sun” is an Early Slavic pagan symbol of the Sun. It was engraved on wooden monuments built near the final resting places of fallen Slavs to represent eternal life.[90] The symbol was first seen in a collection of Early Slavic symbols and architectural features drawn and compiled by Polish painter Stanisław Jakubowski, which he named Prasłowiańskie motywy architektoniczne (Polish: Early Slavic Architectural Motifs).[90] His work was published in 1923, by a publishing house that was then based in the Dębniki district of Kraków.[90] The symbol can also be found on embroidery and pottery in most Slavic countries.
In Russia before World War I the swastika was a favorite sign of the last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. She placed it where she could for happiness, including drawing it in pencil on the walls and windows in the Ipatiev House – place of execution of the royal family, and, without dating, on the wallpaper above the bed, where obviously slept the heir.[91] It was printed on some banknotes of the Russian Provisional Government (1917) and some sovznaks (1918-1922).[92] In 1919 it was approved as insignia for the Kalmyk formations,[93] and for a short period had a certain popularity amongst some artists, politics and army groups.[94] Also it was present on icons, vestments and clerical clothing[95] but in World War II it was removed, becoming by association, a symbol of the German occupation.[96]
In modern Russia some neo-Nazis[97][98] and neopagan followers of pseudohistory argue that the Russian name of the swastika is Kolovrat (Russian: Коловрат, literally “spinning wheel“), but there are no ethnographic sources confirming this.[96][99] In the traditional vernacular the swastika was called differently; for example, “breeze” – as in Christianity, the swastika represents a spiritual movement, descent of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the “wind” and “spirit” – a word with one meaning.[96] Or “geeses”, “ognevtsi” (dialect. “little flames”), “hares” (towel with a swastika was called as towel with the “hares”), “little horses”, because it is such a curved cross.[95][96]
The neo-Nazi Russian National Unity group’s branch in Estonia is officially registered under the name “Kolovrat” and published an extremist newspaper in 2001 under the same name.[97] A criminal investigation found the paper included an array of racial epithets. One Narva resident was sentenced to 1 year in jail for distribution of Kolovrat.[100] The Kolovrat has since been used by the Rusich Battalion, a Russian militant group known for its operation during the War in Donbass.[101]
Sami
An object very much like a hammer or a double axe is depicted among the magical symbols on the drums of Sami shamans, used in their religious ceremonies before Christianity was established. The name of the Sami thunder god was Horagalles, thought to be derived from “Old Man Thor” (Þórr karl). Sometimes on the drums, a male figure with a hammer-like object in either hand is shown, and sometimes it is more like a cross with crooked ends, or a swastika.[88]
Medieval and early modern Europe
In Christianity, the swastika is used as a hooked version of the Christian Cross, the symbol of Christ’s victory over death. Some Christian churches built in the Romanesque and Gothic eras are decorated with swastikas, carrying over earlier Roman designs. Swastikas are prominently displayed in a mosaic in the St. Sophia church of Kiev, Ukraine dating from the 12th century. They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on a tomb in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan.[citation needed]
A ceiling painted in 1910 in the church of St Laurent in Grenoble has many swastikas. It can be visited today because the church became the archaeological museum of the city. A proposed direct link between it and a swastika floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, which was built on top of a pagan site at Amiens, France in the 13th century, is considered unlikely. The stole worn by a priest in the 1445 painting of the Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden presents the swastika form simply as one way of depicting the cross.
Swastikas also appear in art and architecture during the Renaissance and Baroque era. The fresco The School of Athens shows an ornament made out of swastikas, and the symbol can also be found on the facade of the Santa Maria della Salute, a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice.
In the Polish First Republic the symbol of the swastika was also popular with the nobility. According to chronicles, the Rus’ prince Oleg, who in the 9th century attacked Constantinople, nailed his shield (which had a large red swastika painted on it) to the city’s gates.[102] Several noble houses, e.g. Boreyko, Borzym, and Radziechowski from Ruthenia, also had swastikas as their coat of arms. The family reached its greatness in the 14th and 15th centuries and its crest can be seen in many heraldry books produced at that time. The swastika was also a heraldic symbol, for example on the Boreyko coat of arms, used by noblemen in Poland and Ukraine. In the 19th century the swastika was one of the Russian empire’s symbols; it was even placed in coins as a background to the Russian eagle.[103][104]
A swastika can be seen on stonework at Valle Crucis Abbey, near Llangollen.
Africa
The swastika can be found on Ashanti gold weights and among adinkra symbols in West Africa.[105]
Early 20th century
In the Western world, the symbol experienced a resurgence following the archaeological work in the late 19th century of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the symbol in the site of ancient Troy and associated it with the ancient migrations of Proto-Indo-Europeans, whose proto-language was not coincidentally termed “Proto-Indo-Germanic” by German language historians. He connected it with similar shapes found on ancient pots in Germany, and theorized that the swastika was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors”, linking it to ancient Teutons, Greeks of the time of Homer and Indians of the Vedic era.[106][107] By the early 20th century, it was used worldwide and was regarded as a symbol of good luck and success.
The work of Schliemann soon became intertwined with the völkisch movements, for which the swastika was a symbol of the “Aryan race“, a concept that came to be equated by theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg with a Nordic master race originating in northern Europe. Since its adoption by the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler, the swastika has been associated with Nazism, fascism, racism in its (white supremacy) form, the Axis powers in World War II, and the Holocaust in much of the West. The swastika remains a core symbol of Neo-Nazi groups.
The Benedictine choir school at Lambach Abbey, Upper Austria, which Hitler attended for several months as a boy, had a swastika chiseled into the monastery portal and also the wall above the spring grotto in the courtyard by 1868. Their origin was the personal coat of arms of Abbot Theoderich Hagn of the monastery in Lambach, which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field.[108] The Lambach swastika is probably of Medieval origin.
Europe
Britain
In the 1880’s the Theosophical Society adopted a swastika as part of its seal, along with an Om, a hexagram or star of David, an Ankh and an Ouroboros. Unlike the much more recent Raëlian movement, the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy, and the seal is still used. The current seal also includes the text “There is no religion higher than truth.”[109] The British author and poet Rudyard Kipling used the symbol on the cover art of a number of his works, including The Five Nations, 1903, which has it twinned with an elephant.
Denmark
The Danish brewery company Carlsberg Group used the swastika as a logo[110] from the 19th Century until the middle of the 1930s when it was discontinued because of association with the Nazi Party in neighbouring Germany. The swastika carved on elephants at the entrance gates of the company’s headquarters in Copenhagen in 1901 can still be seen today.[111]
Ireland
The Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, a district of Dublin, Ireland. In the fifties Heinrich Böll came across a van belonging to the company while he was staying in Ireland, leading to some awkward moments before he realized the company was older than Nazism and totally unrelated to it. The chimney of the boiler-house of the laundry still stands, but the laundry has been redeveloped.[112][113]
Finland
In Finland the swastika was often used in traditional folk art products, as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood. The swastika was also used by the Finnish Air Force until 1945, and is still used on air force flags.
The tursaansydän is used by scouts in some instances[114] and a student organization.[115] The village of Tursa uses the tursaansydän as a kind of a certificate of authenticity on products made there.[116] Traditional textiles are still being made with swastikas as parts of traditional ornaments.
Finnish military
The Finnish Air Force used the swastika as an emblem, introduced in 1918. The type of swastika adopted by the air-force was the symbol of luck for the Swedish count Eric von Rosen, who donated one of its earliest aircraft; he later became a prominent figure in the Swedish nazi-movement.
The swastika was also used by the women’s paramilitary organization Lotta Svärd, which was banned in 1944 in accordance with the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the allied Soviet Union and Britain.
The President of Finland is the grand master of the Order of the White Rose. According to the protocol, the president shall wear the Grand Cross of the White Rose with collar on formal occasions. The original design of the collar, decorated with 9 swastikas, dates from 1918, and was designed by the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The Grand Cross with the swastika collar has been awarded 41 times to foreign heads of state. To avoid misunderstandings, the swastika decorations were replaced by fir crosses at the decision of president Urho Kekkonen in 1963 after it became known that the President of France Charles De Gaulle was uncomfortable with the swastika collar.
Also a design by Gallen-Kallela from 1918, the Cross of Liberty has a swastika pattern in its arms. The Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the standard of the President of Finland.[117]
In December 2007, a silver replica of the World War II period Finnish air defence’s relief ring decorated with a swastika became available as a part of a charity campaign.[118]
The original war time idea was that the public swap their precious metal rings for the State air defence’s relief ring, made of iron.
Latvia
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The swastica is an old Baltic thunder cross.[119] Latvia adopted the swastika, called the Pērkonkrusts (“thunder cross”), for its Air Force in 1918/1919 and continued its use until 1940. The cross itself was maroon on a white background, mirroring the colors of the Latvian flag. Earlier versions pointed counter-clockwise, while later versions pointed clock-wise and eliminated the white background.[120][121]
Poland
The traditional symbols of the Podhale Rifles include the edelweiss flower and the Mountain Cross, a swastika symbol popular in folk culture of the Polish mountainous regions. The units of Podhale Rifles, both historical and modern, are notable for their high morale and distinctive uniforms.
Swedish
The Swedish company ASEA, now a part of ABB, used a company logo featuring a swastika. The logo was replaced in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.
North America
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The swastika motif is found in some traditional Native American art and iconography. Historically, the design has been found in excavations of Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, and on objects associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.). It is also widely used by a number of southwestern tribes, most notably the Navajo, and plains nations such as the Dakota. Among various tribes, the swastika carries different meanings. To the Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan; to the Navajo it is one symbol for the whirling log (tsil no’oli), a sacred image representing a legend that is used in healing rituals.[122] A brightly colored First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.[123]
A swastika shape is a symbol in the culture of the Kuna people of Kuna Yala, Panama. In Kuna tradition it symbolizes the octopus that created the world, its tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points.[124]
From 1909 to 1916, the K-R-I-T automobile, manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, used a right-facing swastika as their trademark.
In February 1925 the Kuna revolted vigorously against Panamanian suppression of their culture, and in 1930 they assumed autonomy. The flag they adopted at that time is based on the swastika shape, and remains the official flag of Kuna Yala. A number of variations on the flag have been used over the years: red top and bottom bands instead of orange were previously used, and in 1942 a ring (representing the traditional Kuna nose-ring) was added to the center of the flag to distance it from the symbol of the Nazi party.[125]
The symbol for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army, before the 1930s, was a red square with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the southwestern United States.
The town of Swastika, Ontario, Canada is named after the symbol.
Nazism
Use in Nazism
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The swastika was widely used in Europe at the start of the 20th century. It symbolized many things to the Europeans, with the most common symbolism being of good luck and auspiciousness.[5] In the wake of widespread popular usage, in post-World War I Germany, the newly established Nazi Party formally adopted the Hakenkreuz (German: [ˈhaːkn̩kʀɔʏts], meaning “hooked-cross”) in 1920. The emblem was a black swastika (hooks branching clockwise) rotated 45 degrees on a white circle on a red background. This insignia was used on the party’s flag, badge, and armband.
In his 1925 work Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler writes that: “I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika.”
When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi Party, he sought to incorporate both the swastika and “those revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honor to the German nation.” (Red, white, and black were the colors of the flag of the old German Empire.) He also stated: “As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work.”[126]
The swastika was also understood as “the symbol of the creating, effecting life” (das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens) and as “race emblem of Germanism” (Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums).[127]
The use of the swastika was incorporated by Nazi theorists with their conjecture of Aryan cultural descent of the German people. The fascination of the German people with Aryanism arose when artifacts with swastikas on them were found near the Trojan city of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann. The Nazi party was looking for the symbol that would preferably catch the attention of all of Germany and the swastika had that potential. It became a symbol to unify the German people, to a conjecture about their ancestors, Aryan identity and nationalistic pride. It also allowed the Nazi party to establish their anti-Semitic views, as well as terrify Jews and the enemies of the Nazi state.[5]
The concept of racial hygiene was an ideology central to Nazism, though it is scientific racism.[128][129] For Alfred Rosenberg, the Aryans of India were both a model to be imitated and a warning of the dangers of the spiritual and racial “confusion” that, he believed, arose from the proximity of races. Thus, they saw fit to co-opt the sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race. The use of the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan race dates back to writings of Emile Burnouf. Following many other writers, the German nationalist poet Guido von List believed it to be a uniquely Aryan symbol.[citation needed]
Before the Nazis, the swastika was already in use as a symbol of German völkisch nationalist movements (Völkische Bewegung). Ulric of England [sic] says
… what inspired Hitler to use the swastika as a symbol for the NSDAP was its use by the Thule Society (German: Thule-Gesellschaft) since there were many connections between them and the DAP … from 1919 until the summer of 1921 Hitler used the special Nationalsozialistische library of Dr. Friedrich Krohn, a very active member of the Thule-Gesellschaft … Dr. Krohn was also the dentist from Sternberg who was named by Hitler in Mein Kampf as the designer of a flag very similar to one that Hitler designed in 1920 … during the summer of 1920, the first party flag was shown at Lake Tegernsee … these home-made … early flags were not preserved, the Ortsgruppe München (Munich Local Group) flag was generally regarded as the first flag of the Party.
— Ulric of England, Deutschland Erwache, ISBN 0-912138-69-6
José Manuel Erbez says:
The first time the swastika was used with an Aryan meaning was on December 25, 1907, when the self-named Order of the New Templars, a secret society founded by [Adolf Joseph] Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, hoisted at Werfenstein Castle (Austria) a yellow flag with a swastika and four fleurs-de-lys.[130]
However, Liebenfels was drawing on an already established use of the symbol. On 14 March 1933, shortly after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the NSDAP flag was hoisted alongside Germany’s national colors. It was adopted as the sole national flag on 15 September 1935.
The swastika was used for badges and flags throughout Nazi Germany, particularly for government and military organizations, but also for “popular” organizations such as the Reichsbund Deutsche Jägerschaft (German Hunting Society).[131]
While the DAP and the NSDAP had used both right-facing and left-facing swastikas, the right-facing swastika was used consistently from 1920 onwards. Ralf Stelter notes that the swastika flag used on land had a right-facing swastika on both sides, while the ensign (naval flag) had it printed through so that a left-facing swastika would be seen when looking at the ensign with the flagpole to the right.[132] Nazi ensigns had a through and through image, so both versions were present, one on each side, but the Nazi flag on land was right-facing on both sides and at a 45° rotation.[133]
Several variants are found:
- a 45° black swastika on a white disc as in the NSDAP and national flags;
- a 45° black swastika on a white lozenge (Hitler Youth[134]);
- a 45° black swastika with a white outline was painted on the tail of aircraft of the Luftwaffe, and usually using a design based on a 25-small-square subdivided square template (width of “strokes” in each of its arms, equalling the width of the space between the strokes);
- a 45° black swastika outlined by thin white and black lines on a white disc (the German War Ensign[135]);
- an upright black swastika outlined by thin white and black lines on a white disc ( Personal standard of Adolf Hitler in which a gold wreath encircles the swastika; the Schutzstaffel; and the Reichsdienstflagge, in which a black circle encircles the swastika);
- small gold, silver, black, or white 45° swastikas, often lying on or being held by an eagle, on many badges and flags.[136]
- a swastika with curved outer arms forming a broken circle, as worn by the Waffen SS Wiking and Nordland Divisions.[137]
Use by anti-Nazis
During World War II it was common to use small swastikas to mark air-to-air victories on the sides of Allied aircraft, and at least one British fighter pilot inscribed a swastika in his logbook for each German plane he shot down in World War II.[138]
Post–World War II stigmatization
Because of its use by Nazi Germany, the swastika since the 1930s has been largely associated with Nazism. After World War II ended, it is considered a symbol of hate in the West,[139] or alternatively of white supremacy in many Western countries.[140]
As a result, all of its use, or its use as a Nazi or hate symbol, is prohibited in some countries, including Germany. Because of the stigma attached to the symbol, many buildings that have used the symbol as decoration have had the symbol removed.[citation needed] In some countries, such as the United States’ Virginia v. Black 2003 case, the highest courts have ruled that the local governments can prohibit the use of swastika along with other symbols such as cross burning, if the intent of the use is to intimidate others.[6]
Germany
The German and Austrian postwar criminal code makes the public showing of the Hakenkreuz (the swastika), the sig rune, the Celtic cross (specifically the variations used by the White-Power-Activists), the wolfsangel, the odal rune and the Totenkopf skull illegal, except for scholarly reasons (and, in the case of the odal rune, as the insignia of the rank of sergeant major, Hauptfeldwebel,[141] in the modern German Bundeswehr). It is also censored from the reprints of 1930s railway timetables published by the Reichsbahn. The eagle remains, but appears to be holding a solid black circle between its talons. The swastikas on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples are exempt, as religious symbols cannot be banned in Germany.
The German fashion company Esprit Holdings was investigated for using traditional British-made folded leather buttons after complaints that they resembled swastikas. In response, Esprit Holdings destroyed two hundred thousand catalogues.[142][143]
A controversy was stirred by the decision of several police departments to begin inquiries against anti-fascists.[144] In late 2005 police raided the offices of the punk rock label and mail order store “Nix Gut Records” and confiscated merchandise depicting crossed-out swastikas and fists smashing swastikas. In 2006 the Stade police department started an inquiry against anti-fascist youths using a placard depicting a person dumping a swastika into a trashcan. The placard was displayed in opposition to the campaign of right-wing nationalist parties for local elections.[145]
On Friday, 17 March 2006, a member of the Bundestag, Claudia Roth reported herself to the German police for displaying a crossed-out swastika in multiple demonstrations against Neo-Nazis, and subsequently got the Bundestag to suspend her immunity from prosecution. She intended to show the absurdity of charging anti-fascists with using fascist symbols: “We don’t need prosecution of non-violent young people engaging against right-wing extremism.” On 15 March 2007, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof) held that the crossed-out symbols were “clearly directed against a revival of national-socialist endeavors”, thereby settling the dispute for the future.[146][147][148]
Legislation in other European countries
- Until 2013 in Hungary, it was a criminal misdemeanour to publicly display “totalitarian symbols”, including the swastika, the SS insignia, and the Arrow Cross, punishable by custodial arrest.[149][150] Display for academic, educational, artistic or journalistic reasons was allowed at the time. The communist symbols of hammer and sickle and the red star were also regarded as totalitarian symbols and had the same restriction by Hungarian criminal law until 2013.[149]
- In Lithuania, public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is an administrative offence, punishable by a fine from 150 to 300 euros. According to judicial practice, display of a non-Nazi swastika is legal.[151]
- In Poland, public display of Nazi symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is a criminal offence punishable by up to eight years of imprisonment. The use of the swastika as a religious symbol is legal.[152]
Attempt to ban in the European Union
The European Union’s Executive Commission proposed a European Union-wide anti-racism law in 2001, but European Union states failed to agree on the balance between prohibiting racism and freedom of expression.[153] An attempt to ban the swastika across the EU in early 2005 failed after objections from the British Government and others. In early 2007, while Germany held the European Union presidency, Berlin proposed that the European Union should follow German Criminal Law and criminalize the denial of the Holocaust and the display of Nazi symbols including the swastika, which is based on the Ban on the Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations Act. This led to an opposition campaign by Hindu groups across Europe against a ban on the swastika. They pointed out that the swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace.[154][155] The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on 29 January 2007.[153]
Latin America
- The manufacture, distribution or broadcasting of the swastika, with the intent to propagate Nazism, is a crime in Brazil as dictated by article 20, paragraph 1, of federal statute 7.716, passed in 1989. The penalty is a two to five years prison term and a fine.[156]
- The flag of the Guna Yala autonomous territory of Panama is based on a swastika design. In 1942 a ring was added to the centre of the flag to differentiate it from the symbol of the Nazi Party (this version subsequently fell into disuse).[125]
United States
Swastika is a part of the American Nazi Party‘s flag, the symbol picked by its founder George Rockwell.[157]
Swastika, in various iconographic forms, is one of the hate symbols identified to be in use as graffiti in the schools of the United States, and is a part of the 1999 US Department of Education’s emergency school-wide response trigger.[158]
Media
In 2010, Microsoft officially spoke out against the use of the swastika in the first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops. In Black Ops, players are allowed to customize their name tags to represent, essentially, whatever they want. The swastika can be created and used, but Stephen Toulouse, director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement, stated that players with the symbol on their name tag will be banned (if someone reports as inappropriate) from Xbox Live.[159]
In the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular in Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida, the swastikas on German trucks, aircraft and actor uniforms in the reenactment of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark were removed in 2004. The swastika has been replaced by a stylized Greek Cross.[160]
Nazi imagery was adapted and incorporated into the 2016 sci-fi movie 2BR02B: To Be or Naught to Be. Its inclusion was to subliminally draw parallels between the movie’s Federal Bureau of Termination and Nazi Germany, and also refer to Kurt Vonnegut‘s experiences as a POW and the influence World War II played in his imagining of a population-controlled future where gas chambers are used to terminate people. The Federal Bureau of Termination logo appears as a white geometric design with a black outline, centered on vertical banners, in reference to the Third Reich banners. These banners were initially red, until crew felt the allusion was too strong. The movie’s hospital was envisaged as the Bureau’s branch which controlled birth, and their red cross was given ‘wings’ to transform it into a swastika, and link it to the Bureau’s logo.[161]
Contemporary use
Central Asia
In 2005, authorities in Tajikistan called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national symbol. President Emomali Rahmonov declared the swastika an Aryan symbol and 2006 to be “the year of Aryan culture”, which would be a time to “study and popularize Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilization, raise a new generation (of Tajiks) with the spirit of national self-determination, and develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures”.[162]
East and Southeast Asia
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In East Asia, the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities. It is commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artefacts, texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups. It also appears as a design or motif (singularly or woven into a pattern) on textiles, architecture and various decorative objects as a symbol of luck and good fortune. The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition, but in the left facing mode.[163][164]
The Red Swastika Society, a syncretic religious group that aspires to unify Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, runs two schools in Hong Kong (the Hong Kong Red Swastika Society Tai Po Secondary School[165] and the Hong Kong Red Swastika Society Tuen Mun Primary School[166]) and one in Singapore (Red Swastika School). All of them incorporated the Swastika in their school logo to signify the society’s aspiration with philanthropy and moral education.
The swastika is also used in maps to denote a temple. For example, the symbol is designated by the Survey Act and related Japanese governmental rules to denote a Buddhist temple on Japanese maps.[167]
Hirosaki City in Aomori Prefecture designates this symbol as its official flag, which stemmed from its use in the emblem of the Tsugaru clan, the lords of Hirosaki Domain during the Edo period.
Among the predominantly Hindu population of Bali Indonesia, the swastika is common in temples, homes and public spaces. Similarly, the swastika is a common icon associated with Buddha’s footprints in Theravada Buddhist communities of Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.[164]
Indian subcontinent
In India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the swastika is common. Temples, businesses and other organisations, such as the Buddhist libraries, Ahmedabad Stock Exchange and the Nepal Chamber of Commerce,[168] use the swastika in reliefs or logos.[164] Swastikas are ubiquitous in Indian and Nepalese communities, located on shops, buildings, transport vehicles, and clothing. The swastika continues to be prominently used in Hindu ceremonies such as weddings. The left facing sauwastika symbol is found in tantric rituals.[7]
Musaeus College in Colombo, Sri Lanka which is a popular Buddhist girls’ school in the country has a left facing swastika in their school logo.[citation needed]
In India, swastik and swastika, with their spelling variants, are first names for males and females respectively, for instance with Swastika Mukherjee. The Seal of Bihar contains two swastikas.[citation needed]
New religious movements
Besides the use as a religious symbol in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, which can be traced to pre-modern traditions, the swastika is also used by a number of new religious movements established in the modern period.
- The Raëlian Movement, who believe that extraterrestrials originally created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced star of David and a swastika. The Raelians state that the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in time—no beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic.[169] In 1991, the symbol was changed to remove the swastika, out of respect to the victims of the Holocaust, but as of 2007 has been restored to its original form.[170]
- The Tantra-based movement Ananda Marga (Devanagari: आनन्द मार्ग, meaning Path of Bliss) uses a motif similar to the Raëlians, but in their case the apparent star of David is defined as intersecting triangles with no specific reference to Jewish culture.[citation needed]
- The Falun Gong qigong movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with yin-and-yang symbols. The usage is taken from traditional Chinese symbolism, and here alludes to a chakra-like portion of the esoteric human anatomy, located in the stomach.
- The swastika is a holy symbol of Odinism and Asatru (Heathenry), along with hammer of Thor and runes. This tradition is found in Scandinavia, Germany and elsewhere, and it considers the swastika to be derived from Norse symbol for the sun. Their use of the symbol has led to accusations that they may be a neo-Nazi group.[171][172][173]
Western misinterpretation of Asian use
Since the end of the 20th century, and through the early 21st century, confusion and controversy has occurred when consumer goods bearing the traditional Jain, Buddhist, or Hindu symbols have been exported to the West, notably to North America and Europe, and have been interpreted by consumers as bearing a Nazi symbol. This has resulted in several such products having been boycotted or pulled from shelves.
When a ten-year-old boy in Lynbrook, New York, bought a set of Pokemon cards imported from Japan in 1999, two of the cards contained the left-facing Buddhist swastika. The boy’s parents misinterpreted the symbol as the right-facing Nazi swastika and filed a complaint to the manufacturer. Nintendo of America announced that the cards would be discontinued, explaining that what was acceptable in one culture was not necessarily so in another; their action was welcomed by the Anti-Defamation League who recognised that there was no intention to be offensive but said that international commerce meant that “isolating [the Swastika] in Asia would just create more problems”.[16]
In 2002, Christmas crackers containing plastic toy red pandas sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after complaints from consumers in Canada. The manufacturer, based in China, said the symbol was presented in a traditional sense and not as a reference to the Nazis, and apologized to the customers for the cross-cultural mixup.[174]
In 2007, Spanish fashion chain Zara withdrew a handbag from its stores after a customer in Britain complained swastikas were embroidered on it. The bags were made by a supplier in India and inspired by commonly used Hindu symbols, which include the swastika.[175]
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