Swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly found in various Eurasian cultures, as well as some African and American ones. In the West it is more widely recognized as a symbol of the German Nazi Party who appropriated it from Asian cultures starting in the early 20th century. The appropriation continues with its use by neo-Nazis around the world.[1][2][3][4] The swastika never stopped being used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.[5][6][7][8][1] It generally takes the form of a cross,[A] the arms of which are of equal length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms, each bent midway at a right angle.[10][11]
For other uses, see Swastika (disambiguation).
The word swastika comes from Sanskrit: स्वस्तिक, romanized: svastika, meaning 'conducive to well-being'.[12][1] In Hinduism, the right-facing symbol (clockwise) (卐) is called swastika, symbolizing surya ('sun'), prosperity and good luck, while the left-facing symbol (counter-clockwise) (卍) is called sauvastika, symbolising night or tantric aspects of Kali.[1] In Jain symbolism, it represents Suparshvanatha – the seventh of 24 Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers and saviours), while in Buddhist symbolism it represents the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.[1][13][14] In several major Indo-European religions, the swastika symbolises lightning bolts, representing the thunder god and the king of the gods, such as Indra in Vedic Hinduism, Zeus in the ancient Greek religion, Jupiter in the ancient Roman religion, and Thor in the ancient Germanic religion.[15] The symbol is found in the archeological remains of the Indus Valley Civilisation[16] and Samarra, as well as in early Byzantine and Christian artwork.[17][18]
Although used for the first time as a symbol of international antisemitism by far-right Romanian politician A. C. Cuza prior to World War I,[19][20][21] it was a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck for most of the Western world until the 1930s,[2] when the German Nazi Party adopted the swastika as an emblem of the Aryan race. As a result of World War II and the Holocaust, in the West it continues to be strongly associated with Nazism, antisemitism,[22][23] white supremacism,[24][25] or simply evil.[26][27] As a consequence, its use in some countries, including Germany, is prohibited by law.[B] However, the swastika remains a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain countries such as Nepal, India, Thailand, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, China and Japan, and by some peoples, such as the Navajo people of the Southwest United States. It is also commonly used in Hindu marriage ceremonies and Dipavali celebrations.
The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti, which is composed of su 'good, well' and asti 'is; it is; there is'.[30] The word swasti occurs frequently in the Vedas as well as in classical literature, meaning 'health, luck, success, prosperity', and it was commonly used as a greeting.[31][32] The final ka is a common suffix that could have multiple meanings.[33]
According to Monier-Williams, a majority of scholars consider the swastika a solar symbol.[31] The sign implies well-being, something fortunate, lucky, or auspicious.[31][34] It is alternatively spelled in contemporary texts as svastika,[35] and other spellings were occasionally used in the 19th and early 20th century, such as suastika.[36] It was derived from the Sanskrit term (Devanagari स्वस्तिक), which transliterates to svastika under the commonly used IAST transliteration system, but is pronounced closer to swastika when letters are used with their English values.
The earliest known use of the word swastika is in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi, which uses it to explain one of the Sanskrit grammar rules, in the context of a type of identifying mark on a cow's ear.[30] Most scholarship suggests that Pāṇini lived in or before the 4th century BCE,[37][38] possibly in 6th or 5th century BCE.[39][40]
An important early use of the word swastika in a European text was in 1871 with the publications of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered more than 1,800 ancient samples of the swastika symbol and its variants while digging the Hisarlik mound near the Aegean Sea coast for the history of Troy. Schliemann linked his findings to the Sanskrit swastika.[41][42][43]
By the 19th century, the term swastika was adopted into the English lexicon,[44] replacing the previous gammadion from Greek γαμμάδιον. In 1878, Irish scholar Charles Graves used swastika as the common English name for the symbol, after defining it as equivalent to the French term croix gammée – a cross with arms shaped like the Greek letter gamma (Γ).[45] Shortly thereafter, British antiquarians Edward Thomas and Robert Sewell separately published their studies about the symbol, using swastika as the common English term.[46][47]
The concept of a "reversed" swastika was probably first made among European scholars by Eugène Burnouf in 1852, and taken up by Schliemann in Ilios (1880), based on a letter from Max Müller that quotes Burnouf. The term sauwastika is used in the sense of 'backwards swastika' by Eugène Goblet d'Alviella (1894): "In India it [the gammadion] bears the name of swastika, when its arms are bent towards the right, and sauwastika when they are turned in the other direction."[48]
Other names for the symbol include:
In various European languages, it is known as the fylfot, gammadion, tetraskelion, or cross cramponnée (a term in Anglo-Norman heraldry); German: Hakenkreuz; French: croix gammée; Italian: croce uncinata; Latvian: ugunskrusts. In Mongolian it is called хас (khas) and mainly used in seals. In Chinese it is called 卍字 (wànzì), pronounced manji in Japanese, manja (만자) in Korean and vạn tự or chữ vạn in Vietnamese. In Balti/Tibetan language it is called yung drung.
![The petroglyph with swastikas, Gegham mountains, Armenia, circa 8,000 – 5,000 BCE[83]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/The_petroglyph_with_swastikas%2C_in_Geghama_mountains%2C_Armenia.jpg/200px-The_petroglyph_with_swastikas%2C_in_Geghama_mountains%2C_Armenia.jpg)
The Samarra bowl, from Iraq, circa 4,000 BCE, held at the Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. The swastika in the centre of the design is a reconstruction.[84]
![The Samarra bowl, from Iraq, circa 4,000 BCE, held at the Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. The swastika in the centre of the design is a reconstruction.[84]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Samarra_bowl.jpg/197px-Samarra_bowl.jpg)
Swastika seals from Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, of the Indus Valley civilisation, circa 2,100 – 1,750 BCE, preserved at the British Museum[85]
![Swastika seals from Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, of the Indus Valley civilisation, circa 2,100 – 1,750 BCE, preserved at the British Museum[85]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/IndusValleySeals_swastikas.JPG/200px-IndusValleySeals_swastikas.JPG)
According to Joseph Campbell, the earliest known swastika is from 10,000 BCE – 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. It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylised picture of a stork in flight.[70] As the carving was found near phallic objects, this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol.[2]
In the mountains of Iran, there are swastikas or spinning wheels inscribed on stone walls, which are estimated to be more than 7,000 years old. One instance is in Khorashad, Birjand, on the holy wall Lakh Mazar.[71][72]
Mirror-image swastikas (clockwise and counter-clockwise) have been found on ceramic pottery in the Devetashka cave, Bulgaria, dated to 6,000 BCE.[73]
Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3,000 BCE.[74] The investigators put forth the hypothesis that the swastika moved westward from the Indian subcontinent to Finland, Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and other parts of Europe.[75] In England, neolithic or Bronze Age stone carvings of the symbol have been found on Ilkley Moor, such as the Swastika Stone.
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,[76] in Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus (Koban culture), and in Neolithic China in the Majiayao culture.[77]
Other Iron Age attestations of the swastika can be associated with Indo-European cultures such as the Illyrians,[78] 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.[63]
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 300 and 600 CE.[79]
The Tierwirbel (the German for "animal whorl" or "whirl of animals"[80]) is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia, the Eurasian Steppe, and later also in Iron Age Scythian and European (Baltic[81] 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).[82]
A swastika inside a temple
A Balinese Hindu shrine
Badges worn by the Kalmyk formations of the Red Army in 1919
Heinrich Pudor's völkisch Treu Deutsch ('True German') 1918 with a swastika. From the collections of Leipzig City Museum.
German World War I helmet with swastika used by a member of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a right-wing paramilitary free corps, participating in the Kapp Putsch 1920
Swastika on a temple in Korea
