The
swastika (from
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
) is an
equilateralIn geometry, an equilateral polygon is a polygon which has all sides of the same length.For instance, an equilateral triangle is a triangle of equal edge lengths...
crossA cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire....
with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
period and was first found in the
Indus Valley CivilizationThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and flourished around the Indus river basin....
of the
Indian SubcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a peninsula which extends southward into the Indian Ocean...
. It occurs today in the modern day culture of
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, sometimes as a geometrical motif and sometimes as a religious symbol; it remains widely used in Eastern and Dharmic religions such as
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
,
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
and
JainismJainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...
.
Despite this usage, the symbol has become stigmatized and to some extent taboo in the
Western worldThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
because of its iconic usage by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
, and it has notably been
outlawed in GermanyThe German Strafgesetzbuch in § 86a outlaws "use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations". This concerns Nazi symbolism in particular and is part of the denazification efforts following the fall of the Third Reich....
if used as a symbol of Nazism (usage of the sign by religious groups is tolerated). Many modern political extremists and neo-nazi groups such as
Afrikaner WeerstandsbewegingThe Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging or AWB, is a far right political organisation and former paramilitary group in South Africa under the leadership of Eugène Terre'Blanche. They are committed to the restoration of an independent Boer republic or "" within South Africa...
, the
Syrian Social Nationalist PartyThe Syrian Social Nationalist Party or SSNP , is a secular nationalist political party in Syria and Lebanon...
and
Russian National UnityRussian National Unity or All-Russian civic patriotic movement "Russian National Unity" , is a far right, ultra-nationalist political party and paramilitary organization based in Russia and operating in states with Russian-speaking populations. It was founded by the ultra-nationalist Alexander...
use stylised swastikas or similar symbols.
Etymology and alternative names
The word
swastika is derived from the
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
word
(in
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
), meaning any lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote good luck. The modern equivalent to the term would be a
talisman.
It is composed of
su- (
cognateCognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymological origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt and skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjōn-. Words with this type...
with
GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
,
eu-), meaning "good, well" and
asti, a verbal abstract to the root
as "to be" (cognate with the
Romance copulaThe copula or copulae in all Romance languages derive mostly from the Latin verbs
SVM and
STO...
, coming ultimately from the
Proto-Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European may refer to:*Proto-Indo-European language, the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages.*Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language....
root
*h1es-);
svasti thus means "well-being." The suffix
-ka either forms a diminutive or intensifies the verbal meaning, and
svastika might thus be translated literally as "that which is associated with well-being," corresponding to "lucky charm" or "thing that is auspicious." The word in this sense is first used in the
HarivamsaThe Harivamsha is an important work of Sanskrit literature, containing 16,374 verses, mostly in metre. The text is also known as . This text is believed as a khila to the Mahabharata and traditionally ascribed to Krishna Dvaipayana Veda Vyasa...
. Monier-Williams notes that the shape of the symbol represents a monogram or interlacing of the letters of the word
written in Ashokan characters.
The
HinduA Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
term has been in use in English since 1871, replacing
gammadionThe gammadion, or rather the tetra-gammadion, is an ancient symbol also known as swastika. The name gammadion comes from the fact that it can be seen as being made up of four Greek gamma letters. Ancient Greek priestesses would tattoo the symbol, along with the tetraskelion, on their bodies...
(from
GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
). Alternative historical
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
spellings of the Sanskrit word include
suastika,
swastica and
svastica.
Alternative names for the shape are:
- crooked cross, hook cross (German: );
- cross cramponned, ~nnée, or ~nny (in heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound *harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
), as each arm resembles a crampon or angle-iron
- double cross, by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Fulton John Sheen was an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio...
, on the April 6, 1941 edition of his radio program The Catholic Hour, not only comparing the CrossThe Christian cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols...
of ChristJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
with the swastika, but also implying that siding with fascism was a "double-crossing-Origin:The phrase originates from the use of the word cross in the sense of foul play; deliberate collusion to lose a contest of some kind.It has also been suggested that the term was inspired by the practice of 18th-century British thief taker and criminal Jonathan Wild, who kept a ledger of his...
" of Christianity
- fylfot, possibly meaning "four feet", chiefly in heraldry and architecture
For a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of architecture. Architecture is the art and science of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures for human shelter or use....
(See fylfotFylfot or fylfot cross is a synonym for swastika, sometimes used in Britain.However – at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson – the fylfot differs somewhat from the archetypal form of the swastika: always upright and typically with truncated limbs, as...
for a discussion of the etymology)
- gammadion
The gammadion, or rather the tetra-gammadion, is an ancient symbol also known as swastika. The name gammadion comes from the fact that it can be seen as being made up of four Greek gamma letters. Ancient Greek priestesses would tattoo the symbol, along with the tetraskelion, on their bodies...
, tetragammadion (Greek: ), or cross gammadion ' onMouseout='HidePop("72106")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/French_language">FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
: ), as each arm resembles the Greek letterThe Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to...
Γ ()
- sun wheel, a name also used as a synonym for the sun cross
The sun cross, a cross inside a circle, is a common symbol in artefacts of Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods....
- tetraskelion (Greek: ), "four legged", especially when composed of four conjoined legs (compare triskelion
A triskelion or triskele is a symbol consisting of three interlocked spirals, or three bent human legs, or any similar symbol with three protrusions and a threefold rotational symmetry....
(Greek: ))
- Mundilfari
In Norse mythology Mundilfari or Mundilfäri is the father of Sól, associated with the Sun, and Máni, associated with the Moon. Mundilfari is attested in the Poetic Edda poem Vafþrúðnismál stanza 23, and in chapter 11 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning...
an Old Norse term has been associated in modern literature with the swastika.
- Thor's hammer
Thor's Hammer may refer to:*Mjöllnir, the hammer wielded by Thor in Norse mythology.*Thor's Hammer , a garage rock band from Iceland.*Thorr's Hammer, a death/doom band from Ballard, Washington....
, from its supposed association with ThorThor is the red-haired and bearded god of thunder in Germanic mythology and Germanic paganism, and its subsets: Norse paganism, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Continental Germanic paganism....
, the NorseNorse, North Germanic, or Scandinavian mythology comprises the myths of North Germanic pre-Christian religion.Most of the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled in medieval Iceland in Old Norse, notably as the Edda....
godA deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
of the weather, but this may be a misappropriation of a name that properly belongs to a Y-shaped or T-shaped symbol. The swastika shape appears in Icelandic grimoireA grimoire is a textbook of magic. Books of this genre, typically giving instructions for invoking angels or demons, performing divination and gaining magical powers, have circulated throughout Europe since the Middle Ages....
s wherein it is named .
- The Tibetan swastika is known as nor bu bzhi -khyil, or quadruple body symbol, defined in Unicode at codepoint U+0FCC .
- The Buddhist sign was standardised as a Chinese character
A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese , Japanese , less frequently Korean , and formerly Vietnamese , and other languages...
(pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
), and as such entered Japanese, where the symbol is called ()
Geometry
GeometricallyGeometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers....
, the Nazi swastika can be regarded as (the area inside of) an irregular
icosagonIn geometry, an icosagon is a twenty-sided polygon. The sum of any icosagon's interior angles is 3240 degrees.One interior angle in a regular icosagon is 162°; meaning that one exterior angle would be 18°...
or 20-sided
polygonIn geometry a polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path or circuit, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments . These segments are called its edges or sides, and the points where two edges meet are the polygon's vertices or corners...
. The proportions of it were fixed based on a 5x5 diagonal grid.
Characteristic is the 90°
rotational symmetryGenerally speaking, an object with rotational symmetry is an object that looks the same after a certain amount of rotation. An object may have more than one rotational symmetry; for instance, if reflections or turning it over are not counted, the triskelion appearing on the Isle of Man's flag has...
and
chiralityIn geometry, a figure is chiral if it is not identical to its mirror image, or more particularly if it cannot be mapped to its mirror image by rotations and translations alone. A chiral object and its mirror image are said to be enantiomorphs...
, hence the absence of reflectional
symmetrySymmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
, and the existence of two versions of swastikas that are each other's
mirror imageA mirror image is a reflected duplication that appears identical but in reverse. As an optical effect it results from reflection off of substances such as a mirror or water...
.
The mirror-image forms are often described as:
- clockwise and counterclockwise;
- left-facing and right-facing;
- left-hand and right-hand.
"Left-facing" and "right-facing" are used mostly consistently referring to the upper arm of an upright swastika facing either to
the viewer's left (卍) or right (卐). The other two descriptions are ambiguous as it is unclear whether they refer to the arms as leading or being dragged or whether their bending is viewed outward or inward. However, "clockwise" usually refers to the "right-facing" swastika. The terms are used inconsistently (sometimes even by the same writer), which is confusing and may obfuscate an important point, that the rotation of the swastika may have symbolic relevance, although little is known about this symbolic relevance. Less confusing terms might be "clockwise-pointing" and "counterclockwise-pointing".
Nazi
ensignAn ensign is a distinguishing flag of a ship or a military unit; or a distinguishing token, emblem, or badge, such as a symbol of office. The word has also given rise to the military rank of "ensign", a rank of junior officer once responsible for bearing the ensign of his unit.The word is derived...
s had a
through and throughThrough and through describes a situation where an object, real or imaginary, passes completely through another object, also real or imaginary...
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.
The name "
sauwastikaThe term sauwastika or sauvastika is a term sometimes used to distinguish the "left-facing" from the "right-facing" form of the swastika symbol. The "left-facing" variant is favoured in Bön and Gurung Dharma where it is called yungdrung in Bon and Gurung Yantra in Gurung Dharma...
" is sometimes given to the left-facing form of the swastika ,
Origin hypotheses
The ubiquity of the swastika symbol is easily explained by its being a very simple shape that will arise independently in any basket-weaving society. The swastika is a repeating design, created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via
cultural diffusionCultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by the famous Alfred L. Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations, is used in cultural anthropology and cultural geography to describe the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles,...
or an explanation along the lines of
Carl JungCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe...
's
collective unconsciousCollective unconscious, sometimes known as collective subconscious, is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, humanity and all life forms, that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science,...
.
The genesis of the swastika symbol is often treated in conjunction with cross symbols in general, such as the "sun wheel" of
Bronze Age religionPrehistoric religion is a general term for the religious beliefs and practices of prehistoric peoples.-Burial:Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice since, as Philip Lieberman suggests, it may signify a "concern for the...
.
Another explanation is suggested by
Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences...
in his book
Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
manuscript (the
Book of SilkThe Divination by Astrological and Meteorological Phenomena is an ancient astronomy silk manuscript compiled by Chinese astronomers of the Western Han Dynasty and found in the Mawangdui tomb of China in 1973...
) 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
cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
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.
In
Life's other secret, Ian Stewart suggests the ubiquitous swastika pattern arises when parallel waves of neural activity sweep across the
visual cortexThe term visual cortex refers to the primary visual cortex and extrastriate visual cortical areas such as V2, V3, V4, and V5. The primary visual cortex is anatomically equivalent to Brodmann area 17, or BA17...
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.
Alexander CunninghamSir Alexander Cunningham KCIE CSI was a British archaeologist and army engineer, known as the father of the Archaeological Survey of India...
rejected any connection of the Indian swastika symbol with sun-worship, and suggested that the shape arose from a combination of Brahmi characters abbreviating the word
su-astí.
Archaeological record
The symbol has an ancient history, appearing on
artifactAn artifact or artefact is any object made or modified by a human. In archaeology, an artifact is an object recovered by some archaeological endeavor, which may have a cultural interest. Examples include stone tools such as projectile points, pottery vessels, metal objects such as buttons or guns,...
s from
Indo-EuropeanIndo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan, a 19th century term for Indo-European speakers.* Proto-Indo-European language, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Indo-European languages....
cultures such as the
Indo-AryansIndo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they...
, Persians,
HittitesThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
, Slavs,
CeltCelts is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic language...
s and
GreeksThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
, among others. The earliest consistent use of swastika motifs in the archaeological record date to the
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
. The symbol was found on a number of shards in the Khuzestan province of
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
and as part of the "Vinca script" of
Neolithic EuropeNeolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BC and ca. 1700 BC...
of the 5th millennium BC. In the Early Bronze Age, it appears on pottery found in
SintashtaThe Sintashta fortified settlement in the southern Urals is dated to ca. 2000–1600 BC. It was excavated between 1968 and 1986 and gave its name to the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The site is located in Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia, ca. ....
, Russia. Early Indian swastika symbols were found at
LothalLothal is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilization. Located in the modern state of Gujarāt and dating from 2400 BCE, it is one of India's most important archaeological site that dates from that era...
and
HarappaHarappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The site takes its name from a modern village is located near the former course of the Ravi River, some southeast of the site....
, on Indus Valley seals.
Swastika-like symbols also appear in Bronze and
Iron AgeIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
designs of the northern
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
(
Koban cultureThe Koban culture is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. It is preceded by the Colchian culture of the western Caucasus....
), and
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan , formally the Republic of Azerbaijan , is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south...
, as well as of Scythians and Sarmatians . 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.
Swastikas have also been found on pottery in archaeological digs in the area of ancient
KushThe Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley...
. Swastikas were also found on pottery at the Jebel Barkal temples.
Historical use in the East
Historically, the swastika became a sacred symbol in
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
,
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
,
JainismJainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...
and
MithraismFor related deities see Mitra .The Mithraic Mysteries or Mysteries of Mithras was a mystery religion which became popular among the military in the Roman Empire, from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. Information on the cult is based mainly on interpretations of monuments. These depict Mithras as born...
, religions with a total of more than a billion adherents worldwide, making the swastika ubiquitous in both historical and contemporary society. The symbol was introduced to
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
by Hindu kings and remains an integral part of
Balinese HinduismHinduism in Indonesia, also known by its formal Indonesian name Agama Hindu Dharma, refers to Hinduism as practised in Indonesia. It is practised by 93% of the population of Bali, but also in Sumatra, Java , Lombok and Kalimantan. Only about 3% of Indonesian population is officially Hindu...
to this day, and it is a common sight in
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
.
The symbol rose to importance in
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
during the Mauryan Empire and in
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
with the
decline of Buddhism in IndiaThe decline of Buddhism in India, the land of its birth, occurred for a variety of reasons, and happened even as it continued to flourish beyond the frontiers of India. Buddhism was established in the area of ancient Magadha and Kosala by Gautama Buddha in the 6th century BCE, in what is now modern...
during the
Gupta EmpireThe Gupta Empire was an Ancient Indian empire which existed approximately from 320 to 550 CE and covered much of the Indian Subcontinent. Founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta, the dynasty began the Classical Age in the Middle kingdoms of India...
. With the
spread of BuddhismThe Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to China started in the 1st century CE with a semi-legendary or quasi-historical account of an embassy sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming...
, the Buddhist swastika reached Tibet and China. The use of the swastika by the indigenous
BönBön is the oldest spiritual tradition of Tibet. Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, has recently recognized the Bön tradition as the fifth principal spiritual school of Tibet, along with the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug schools of Buddhism, despite the long historical competition of...
faith of
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north of the Himalayas. It is home to the indigenous Tibetan people, and to some other ethnic groups such as Monpas and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average...
, as well as
syncreticSyncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. This may involve attempts to merge and analogise several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an...
religions, such as
Cao DaiCao Đài is a relatively new, syncretist, monotheistic religion, officially established in the city of Tây Ninh, southern Vietnam, in 1926. Đạo Cao Đài is the religion's shortened name, the full name is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ...
of
VietnamVietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east...
and
Falun GongFalun Gong is a system of beliefs and practices founded in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992. The practice emerged at the end of China's "qigong boom" as a form of qigong practice. Its teachings are influenced by both Taoism and Buddhism.The number of Falun Gong practitioners is unknown, and the group...
of China, is thought to be borrowed from Buddhism as well.
Hinduism
In
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
, the two symbols represent the two forms of the creator god
BrahmaBrahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. He is not to be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit in Hindu Vedanta philosophy known as Brahman. Brahmā's consort is Saraswati, the goddess of learning...
: facing right it represents the evolution of the universe (Devanagari: प्रवृत्ति,
Pravritti), facing left it represents the involution of the universe (Devanagari: निवृत्ति,
Nivritti). It is also seen as pointing in all four directions (north, east, south and west) and thus signifies grounded stability. Its use as a Sun symbol can first be seen in its representation of the god
SuryaIn Hinduism, Sūrya is the chief solar deity, one of the Adityas, son of Kasyapa and one of his wives, Aditi; of Indra; or of Dyaus Pitar . The term Surya also refers to the Sun, in general. Surya has hair and arms of gold...
(Devanagari: सूर्य,
Sun). The swastika is considered extremely holy and auspicious by all Hindus, and is regularly used to decorate items related to Hindu culture. It is used in all Hindu
yantraYantra are 'instruments'. The meaning is contextual. Much like the word 'instrument' itself. It can stand for symbols, processes, automata, machinery or anything that has structure and organization. One use popular in the west is as symbols or geometric figures. Traditionally such symbols are used...
s (Devanagari: यंत्र) and religious designs. Throughout the subcontinent of India, it can be seen on the sides of temples, religious scriptures, gift items, and letterheads. The Hindu deity Ganesh (Devanagari: गणेश) is often shown sitting on a lotus flower on a bed of swastikas.
The swastika is found all over Hindu temples, signs, altars, pictures and iconography where it is sacred. It is used in Hindu weddings, festivals, ceremonies, houses and doorways, clothing and jewelry, motor transport and even decorations on food items such as cakes and pastries. Among the Hindus of
BengalBengal , is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent...
, it is common to see the name "swastika" (
sbastik) applied to a slightly different symbol, which has the same significance as the common swastika, and both symbols are used as auspicious signs. This symbol looks something like a stick figure of a human being. In the
Bhavishyapuran (a book describing future events and history), it is a weapon of a snake king (dragon), Takshak. A city in Pakistan is named after this dragon, Takshshila.
"Swastika" (
Sbastik) is a common given name amongst
BengalisThe Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
and a prominent literary magazine in
Kolkata, formerly , is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located in eastern India on the east bank of the River Hooghly. When referred to as Calcutta, it usually includes the suburbs, and thus its population exceeds 15 million, making it India's third-largest metropolitan area and...
(Calcutta) is called the
Swastika.
The
AumAum Aum Aum (also Om, written in Devanagari as , in Chinese and Japanese as , in Tibetan as , in Sanskrit known as lit. "to sound out loudly" or lit...
symbol is also sacred in Hinduism. While Aum is representative of a single primordial tone of creation, the Swastika is a pure geometrical mark and has no syllabic tone associated with it. The Swastika is one of the 108 symbols of Hindu deity
VishnuVishnu , , is the Supreme God in Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God...
and represents the sun's rays, upon which life depends.
Buddhism
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
originated in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
in the 5th century BC and inherited the manji or swastika. Also known as a "yung drung" in ancient Tibet, it was a graphical representation of eternity. Today the symbol is used in Buddhist art and scripture and represents
dharmaThe term , is an Indian spiritual and religious term, that means one's righteous duty or any virtuous path in the common sense of the term. A Hindu's Dharma is affected by a person's age, class, occupation, and sex. In Indian languages it can be equivalent simply to "religion", depending on context...
, universal harmony, and the balance of opposites. One can see swastika on the
Pillars of AshokaThe pillars of Ashoka are a series of columns dispersed throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and erected by the Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BCE. Originally, there must have been many pillars of Ashoka although only ten with inscriptions still survive...
where the swastika is a symbol of the cosmic dance around a fixed center and guards against evil.
The paired swastika symbols are included, at least since the
Liao DynastyThe Liao Dynasty , 907-1125, also known as the Khitan Empire , was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper...
, as part of the
Chinese languageChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, the symbolic sign for the character 萬 or 万 (
wàn in Mandarin,
man in Korean, Cantonese and Japanese,
vạn in Vietnamese) meaning "all" or "eternality" (lit.
myriadMyriad is a classical Greek name for the number 10,000. In modern English the word refers to an unspecified large quantity....
) and as 卐, which is seldom used. Swastika marks the beginning of many Buddhist scriptures. The swastika (in either orientation) appears on the chest of some statues of
Gautama BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher in the north eastern region of the Indian subcontinent who founded Buddhism. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c...
and is often incised on the soles of the feet of the Buddha in statuary. Because of the association of the right-facing swastika with Nazism, Buddhist swastika (
outside India only) after the mid-20th century are almost universally left-facing: 卍. This form of the swastika is often found on Chinese food packaging to signify that the product is
vegetarianVegetarianism is the practice of following a diet based on plant-based foods including fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, nuts, and seeds, with or without dairy products and eggs. Vegetarians do not eat meat, game, poultry, fish, crustacea, shellfish, or products of animal slaughter such as...
and can be consumed by strict Buddhists. It is often sewn into the collars of Chinese children's clothing to protect them from evil spirits.
In 1922, the Chinese Syncretist movement
DaoyuanDaoyuan is a religious group that is one of the Way of Former Heaven sects...
founded the philanthropic association
Red Swastika SocietyThe Red Swastika Society is a voluntary association founded in China in 1922 by Qian Neng-kun , Du Bing-yin and Li Jia-bo as the philanthropic branch of the Daodeshe "Society of Dao and Virtue", a syncretist Daoist school, which changed at the same time its name to Daoyuan...
in imitation of the Red Cross. The association was very active in China during the 1920s and the 1930s.
Jainism
JainismJainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...
gives even more prominence to the swastika than does Hinduism. It is a symbol of the seventh
JinaIn Jainism, a Tirthankar is a human being who achieves enlightenment through asceticism and who then becomes a role-model teacher for those seeking spiritual guidance...
(Saint), the
Tirthankara Suparsva. In the Svetambar (Devanagari: श्वेताम्बर) Jain tradition, it is also one of the symbols of the ashta-mangalas (Devanagari: अष्ट मंगल). It is considered to be one of the 24 auspicious marks and the emblem of the seventh
arhatArhat or arahant , in the sramanic traditions of ancient India , signified a spiritual practitioner who had to use an expression common in the tipitaka "laid down the burden", realising the goal of nirvana, the culmination of the spiritual life...
of the present age. 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 (also known as "Sathiyo" in the state of Gujarat, India) in front of idols in a temple. Jains then put an offering on this swastika, usually a ripe or dried fruit, a sweet (Hindi: मिठाई,
Mithai), or a coin or currency note. In 2001, India issued a 100-
rupeeThe rupee is the currency of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. The most commonly used symbols for the rupee are Rs, ₨ and रू. The ISO 4217 code for the Indian rupee is INR. On 5 March 2009 the Indian Government announced a contest to create a symbol...
coin to commemorate the 2600
th anniversary of the birth of Mahavir (Devanagari: महावीर), the 24
th and last Jainist Tirthankara - the design includes a swastika.
Other Asian traditions
Some sources indicate that the Chinese Empress Wu (武則天) (684–704) of the
Tang DynastyThe Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
decreed that the swastika would be used as an alternative symbol of the sun. As part of the
Chinese scriptA Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese , Japanese , less frequently Korean , and formerly Vietnamese , and other languages...
, the swastika has
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
encodings U+534D 卍 (pronunciation following the Chinese character "萬":
pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
:wàn); (left-facing) and U+5350 卐 (right-facing).
The Mandarin "Wan" is a homophone for "10,000" and is commonly used to represent the whole of creation, e.g. 'the myriad things' in the Dao De Jing.
In
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, the swastika is called
manji. Since the Middle Ages, it has been used as a
family coat of arms', also ', ', and ', are Japanese heraldic symbols. Mon may refer to any symbol, while kamon and mondokoro refer specifically to family symbols...
. On
Japanese mapsThis is a list of symbols appearing on Japanese maps. These symbols are called in the Japanese language.- Partial list of symbols for the visually impaired :...
, a swastika (left-facing and horizontal) is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple. The right-facing
manji is often referred as the
gyaku manji , and can also be called
kagi jūji, literally "hook cross".
In
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
n, and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese 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. As the negative space between the lines has a distinctive shape, the sayagata pattern is sometimes called the "key fret" motif in English.
Classical Antiquity
Ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
architectural, clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs. Related symbols in classical Western architecture include the
crossA cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire....
, the three-legged triskele or
triskelionA triskelion or triskele is a symbol consisting of three interlocked spirals, or three bent human legs, or any similar symbol with three protrusions and a threefold rotational symmetry....
and the rounded
lauburuThe lauburu or Basque cross has four comma-shaped heads similar to the Japanese tomoe. It can be constructed with a compass and straightedge, beginning with the formation of a square template; each head can be drawn from a neighboring vertex of this template with two compass settings, with one...
. The swastika symbol is also known in these contexts by a number of names, especially
gammadionThe gammadion, or rather the tetra-gammadion, is an ancient symbol also known as swastika. The name gammadion comes from the fact that it can be seen as being made up of four Greek gamma letters. Ancient Greek priestesses would tattoo the symbol, along with the tetraskelion, on their bodies...
.
In
Greco-RomanThe arts of ancient Greece have exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman Empire was largely derived from Greek models...
art and architecture, and in
RomanesqueRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe, characterised by semi-circular arches, and evolving into the Gothic style, characterised by pointed arches, beginning in the 12th century...
and
Gothic artGothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
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
AugustanGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
Ara PacisThe Ara Pacis Augustae is an altar to Peace, envisioned as a Roman goddess...
. A design of interlocking swastikas is one of several
tessellationA tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of the parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in...
s on the floor of the cathedral of
AmiensAmiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardie.-History:The Paleolithic culture named Acheulean was named for its first identified site, in Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens...
, France. A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif, 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.
Pre-Christian Europe and folk culture
In
Bronze Age EuropeThe Bronze Age in Europe succeeds the Neolithic in the late 3rd millennium BC , and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC in Northern Europe lasting until ca...
, the "
Sun crossThe sun cross, a cross inside a circle, is a common symbol in artefacts of Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods....
" (a cross in a circle) appears frequently, often interpreted as a solar symbol. Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artifacts from
Iron AgeIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
Europe (Greco-Roman, Illyrian,
EtruscanEtruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy and Corsica, residing between the Apennines and the River Tiber, whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci...
, Baltic,
CeltCelts is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic language...
ic,
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age...
, Georgian Bordjgali and
SlavicThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
).
This prehistoric use seems to be reflected in the appearance of the symbol in various folk cultures of Europe.
Baltic
The swastika is one of the most common symbols used throughout Baltic art. The symbol is known as either Ugunskrusts, the "Fire cross" (rotating counter-clockwise), or Pērkonkrusts, the "Thunder cross" (rotating clock-wise), and was mainly associated with Pērkons, the god of Thunder. It was also occasionally related to the Sun, as well as
Dievs (the god of creation),
Laima (the goddess of destiny and fate). The swastika is featured on many distaffs, dowry chests, cloths and other items. It is most intricately developed in woven belts.
Celtic
The bronze frontspiece of a ritual pre-Christian (ca 350-50 BC) shield found in the
River ThamesThe River Thames is a major river flowing through southern England. While best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows through several other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading and Windsor....
near Battersea Bridge (hence "
Battersea ShieldThe Battersea Shield is a sheet bronze and shield decorated in La Tène style. It probably dates from the first century BC to early first century AD, though an earlier date is possible, and dates from as early as 300 BC have been suggested...
") is embossed with 27 swastikas in bronze and red enamel. An
OghamOgham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic ancestor of Welsh...
stone found in Anglish, Co Kerry (CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a
cross pattéeA cross pattée is a type of cross that has arms which are narrow at the center, and broader at the perimeter. The name comes from the fact that the shape of each arm of the cross was thought to resemble a paw...
and two swastikas. At the Northern edge of
Ilkley MoorIlkley Moor is the highest part of Rombalds Moor, the moorland between Ilkley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom. The peat bogs rise to 402 m above sea level...
in
West YorkshireWest Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, there is a swastika-shaped pattern engraved in a stone known as the
Swastika StoneThe Swastika Stone is a stone adorned with a Swastika located on the Woodhouse Crag, on the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire. The design has a double outline with five curved arms enclosing several so-called 'cup' marks, the like of which can be found on other stones nearby. In many...
.
Finnish
In Finland the swastika was often used in traditional folk art products, as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood. Certain types of symbols which incorporated the swastika were used to decorate wood; such symbols are called
tursaansydänThe tursaansydän or mursunsydän is an ancient symbol used in Northern Europe. It was especially popular in Lapland. Some say it was used on Lappish shaman drums...
and mursunsydän in Finnish. Tursaansydän was often used until 18th century, when it was mostly replaced by a simple swastika.
Germanic
The swastika shape (also called a
fylfotFylfot or fylfot cross is a synonym for swastika, sometimes used in Britain.However – at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson – the fylfot differs somewhat from the archetypal form of the swastika: always upright and typically with truncated limbs, as...
) appears on various Germanic
Migration PeriodThe Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung , was a period of human migration that occurred roughly between the years 300 to 700 CE in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
and
Viking AgeViking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
artifacts, such as the 3rd century Værløse Fibula from Zealand, Denmark, the
GothicThe Goths were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe. The historian Jordanes claimed that the Goths arrived from semi-legendary Scandza, believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland , and that a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century, lending their name to the region of...
spearhead from Brest-Litovsk, Russia, the 9th century
Snoldelev StoneThe 9th century runestone at Snoldelev, Ramsø, Denmark, is decorated with a design of three drinking horns interlocking as incomplete Borromean rings , and a swastika. The triple horn motif has been compared to a triskelion, or to the valknut symbol...
from
RamsøUntil January 1, 2007 Ramsø was a municipality in the former Roskilde County on the island of Zealand in east Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 76 km², and had a total population of 9,320 . Its last mayor was Poul Lindor Nielsen, a member of the Social Democrats political party...
, Denmark, and numerous Migration Period
bracteateA bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold coin produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age , but the name is also used for later produced coins of silver produced in central Europe during the early Middle Ages...
s drawn left-facing or right-facing.
The pagan
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
ship burialA ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave...
at
Sutton HooSutton Hoo near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the 6th century and early 7th century, one of which contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of artifacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance.Sutton Hoo is of a...
, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyThe Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge houses the University's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world...
. The Swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
, in a grave of about the sixth century.
Hilda Ellis Davidson theorized that the swastika symbol was associated with
ThorThor is the red-haired and bearded god of thunder in Germanic mythology and Germanic paganism, and its subsets: Norse paganism, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Continental Germanic paganism....
, possibly representing his hammer
MjolnirIn Norse mythology, Mjǫllnir is the hammer of Thor, a major god associated with thunder in Norse mythology. Distinctively shaped, Mjöllnir is depicted in Norse mythology as one of the most fearsome weapons, capable of leveling mountains...
- symbolic of thunder - and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun wheel. 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. 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 symbolFunerary art is any work of art forming or placed in a repository for the remains of the dead. Tomb is a general term for the repository, while grave goods are objects—other than the primary human remains—which have been placed inside...
.
Sami
An object very much like a hammer or a double axe is depicted among the magical symbols on the drums of
SamiThe Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are one of the indigenous people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia but also in the border area between south and middle Sweden...
shamans, used in their religious ceremonies before Christianity was established. The name of the Lappish thunder god was
Horagalles“Horagalles” is a paraphrase of “Thora Galles” or “Thoragalles" and is another and later name used for the Sami thunder God Thor, ðora, Tiermes or “Aijeke” . When Thor or Horagalles thunders he is called "Tiermes" or "Aijeke"...
, 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.
Slavic
The swastika shape was also present in pre-Christian Slavic
mythologySlavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs prior to Christianisation.The religion possesses numerous common traits with other religions descended from the Proto-Indo-European religion....
. It was dedicated to the sun god
SvarogIn Slavic mythology, Svarog is the Slavic sun god and spirit of fire; his name means bright and clear. The name may be related to Sanskrit Svarga and Persian xwar both meaning the same thing, indicating Indo-European etymological relation. So sacred was the fire that it was forbidden to shout or...
(
BelarusianThe Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland...
,
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
and
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet....
Сварог) and called kolovrat
, (CroatianCroatian is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Croatian minorities in some neighbouring countries, in the Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croatian diaspora....
kolovrat, PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
kołowrót, BelarusianThe Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland...
колаўрат
, RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
and UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet....
коловрат or коловорот, SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
коловрат/kolovrat) or swarzyca. In early medieval Europe, the use of swastikas for decoration of pottery and other wares was most frequent in Slavic lands. It first appears within the context of Slavic artefacts in the lower Danube region (modern Wallachia and Moldavia) where early Slavs had contacts with Sarmatian peoples. This practice was then not merely adopted, but "transformed into a new, distinct quality of the symbolic culture of the Slavs".
In the
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
first Republic the symbol of the swastika was also popular with the nobility. According to chronicles, the
Rus'The Rus' were the historic population of the medieval Rus' Khaganate and Kievan Rus'.One of the earliest written sources mentioning the people called Rus in the form of Rhos dates back to year 839 AD in a Royal Frankish chronicle Annales Bertiniani, identified as a Germanic tribe called Swedes...
prince
OlegOleg of Novgorod was a Varangian prince who ruled all or part of the Rus people during the early tenth century. He is credited with moving the capital of Rus from Novgorod the Great to Kiev and, in doing so, he laid the foundation of the powerful state of Kievan Rus...
, who in the 9th century
attacked ConstantinopleThe Rus'-Byzantine War of 907 is associated in the Primary Chronicle with the name of Oleg of Novgorod. The chronicle implies that it was the most successful military operation of the Rus against the Byzantine Empire. Paradoxically, Greek sources do not mention it at all.- Primary Chronicle :The...
, nailed his shield (which had a large red swastika painted on it) to the city's gates. Several noble houses, e.g. Boreyko, Borzym, and Radziechowski from Ruthenia, also had Swastikas as their
coat of armsA coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Historically, they were used by knights to identify them apart from enemy...
. 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.
For the Slavs the swastika is a magic sign manifesting the power and majesty of the sun and fire. It was usually called "The wheel of
SvarogIn Slavic mythology, Svarog is the Slavic sun god and spirit of fire; his name means bright and clear. The name may be related to Sanskrit Svarga and Persian xwar both meaning the same thing, indicating Indo-European etymological relation. So sacred was the fire that it was forbidden to shout or...
". It was often used as an ornament decorating ritualistic utensils of a cult cinerary urns with ashes of the dead. It was the symbol of power (the swastika seen on the coins of Mieszko I). The power both lay and divine, because it was often placed on altars in pagan temples.
At the start of the Renaissance, swastika ornaments disappeared from utensils but swastika continued being used by Slavs. It became a popular ornament on Easter eggs and in wayside shrines in folk culture. This ornament still existed in 1940-50. 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.
Medieval and Early Modern Europe
In Christianity, the swastika is used as a hooked version of the
Christian CrossThe Christian cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols...
, the symbol of Christ's victory over death. Some Christian churches built in the
RomanesqueRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe, characterised by semi-circular arches, and evolving into the Gothic style, characterised by pointed arches, beginning in the 12th century...
and
GothicGothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
eras are decorated with swastikas, carrying over earlier Roman designs. Swastikas are prominently displayed in a
mosaicMosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
in the St. Sophia church of
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
dating from the 12th century. They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on a tomb in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
. 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
AmiensAmiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardie.-History:The Paleolithic culture named Acheulean was named for its first identified site, in Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
in the 1200s, is considered unlikely. The
stoleThe stole is a liturgical vestment of various Christian denominations. It consists of a band of colored cloth, formerly usually of silk, about seven and a half to nine feet long and three to four inches wide, whose ends may be straight or may broaden out...
worn by a priest in the 1445 painting of the Seven Sacraments by
Roger van der WeydenRogier van der Weyden or Rogier de le Pasture is, with Jan van Eyck, considered one of the greatest exponents of the school of Early Netherlandish painting.-Life and family:...
presents the swastika form simply as one way of depicting the cross. Swastikas also appear on the vestments on the effigy of Bishop
William EdingtonWilliam Edington was an English bishop and administrator. He served as bishop of Winchester from 1346 until his death, keeper of the wardrobe from 1341 to 1344, treasurer from 1344 to 1356, and finally as chancellor from 1356 until he retired from royal administration in 1363...
(d.1366) in
Winchester CathedralWinchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe. It is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun and is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and...
.
An unusual swastika, composed of the Hebrew letters
Aleph* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet-People:*Aleph , an Italo disco artist and alias of Dave Rodgers...
and
ReshResh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually or but also or in Hebrew....
, appears in the 18th century
KabbalisticKabbalah is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the mystical aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that is meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator with the finite and mortal universe of His creation...
work "Parashat Eliezer" by Rabbi Eliezer Fischl of Strizhov, a commentary on the obscure ancient eschatological book "Karnayim", ascribed to Rabbi Aharon of Kardina. The symbol is enclosed by a circle and surrounded by a cyclic hymn in Aramaic. The hymn, which refers explicitly to the power of the Sun, as well as the shape of the symbol, shows strong solar symbolism. According to the book, this
mandalaMandala is a concentric diagram having spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism...
-like symbol is meant to help a mystical adept to contemplate on the cyclic nature and structure of the Universe. The letters are the initial and final characters of the Hebrew word, אוֹר, or "light".
FreemasonsFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around 5 million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in...
also gave the swastika symbol importance. In medieval Northern European Runic Script, a counter-clockwise swastika denotes the letter 'G', and could stand for the important Freemason terms
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
,
Great Architect of the UniverseThe Great Architect of the Universe is a conception of God discussed by many Christian theologians and apologists. As a designation it is used within Freemasonry to neutrally represent whatever Supreme Being to which each member individually holds in adherence...
, or
GeometryGeometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers....
.
Native American traditions
The swastika shape was used by some Native Americans. It has been found in excavations of
MississippianThe Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
-era sites in the
Ohio valleyThe Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
. It was widely used by many
southwesternThe Southwestern United States is defined as the states that lie west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37, 38, 39, or 40 degree north latitude. A 97.33 longitude degree west could qualify as the separation of the American Southwest from the...
tribes, most notably the
NavajoThe Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American homeland covering about 26,000 square miles , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
. Among various tribes, the swastika carried different meanings. To the
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
it represented the wandering Hopi clan; to the Navajo it was one symbol for a whirling log (tsil no'oli), a sacred image representing a legend that was used in healing rituals (after learning of the Nazi association, the Navajo discontinued use of the symbol). A brightly colored
First NationsFirst Nations is a term of ethnicity that refers to the Aboriginal peoples in Canada, who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 600 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread all across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia...
saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the
Royal Saskatchewan MuseumThe Royal Saskatchewan Museum was established in Regina as the Provincial Museum in 1906 to "secure and preserve natural history specimens and objects of historical and ethnological interest." It was the first museum in Saskatchewan, Canada, and the first provincial museum in the three Prairie...
in
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
A swastika shape is a symbol in the culture of the
Kuna peopleKuna or Cuna is the name of an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. The spelling Kuna is currently preferred. In the Kuna language, the name is Dule or Tule, meaning "people," and the name of the language in Kuna is Dulegaya, meaning "people-talk."The Kuna are often mistakenly identified as...
of
Kuna YalaKuna Yala is an autonomous territory or comarca in Panama, inhabited by the Kuna indigenous people. The name means "Kuna-land" or "Kuna mountain" in the Kuna language. The area was formerly known as San Blas. The capital of Kuna Yala is El Porvenir....
,
PanamaPanama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of both Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the...
. In Kuna tradition, it symbolizes the octopus that created the world; its tentacles, pointing to the four cardinal points.
In February, 1925, the Kuna revolted against Panamanian suppression of their culture, and were granted autonomy in 1930; 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.
Western use in the early 20th century
In the Western world, the symbol experienced a resurgence following the archaeological work in the late 19th century of
Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an important...
, who discovered the symbol in the site of ancient
TroyTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
and associated it with the ancient migrations of
Proto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , an unattested but now reconstructed prehistoric language....
. 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 Germanic, Greek and Indo-Iranian cultures. By the early 20th century, it was widely 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 raceThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race...
", a concept that came to be equated by theorists such as
Alfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
with a Nordic
master raceThe master race was a concept in Nazi ideology, which holds that the Teutonics , one of the branches of what in the late 19th and early 20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and "pure race"...
originating in northern Europe. Since its adoption by the Nazi Party of
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
, the swastika has been associated with Nazism,
fascismFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
,
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
(
white supremacyWhite supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance of whites....
), the
Axis powersThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
in much of the West. The swastika remains a core symbol of
Neo-NaziThe term neo-Nazism refers to any post-World War II social or political movement seeking to revive Nazism, or some variant that echoes core aspects of Nazism.The term can also refer to the ideology of those movements....
groups, and is used regularly by
activistActivism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social change, political change, economic justice, or environmental wellbeing...
groups to signify their opinion of supposed Nazi-like behavior of organizations and individuals they oppose.
The swastikas on the Finnish
Order of the White RoseThe Order of the White Rose of Finland is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor,...
designed in 1918 by
Akseli Gallen-KallelaAkseli Gallen-Kallela was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic . His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity.-Life:Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori , Finland...
remained in use until 1963. The Finnish
Order of the Cross of LibertyThere are three official orders in Finland: the Order of the Cross of Liberty , the Order of the White Rose of Finland and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor, a...
and the Flag of the
President of FinlandThe President of Finland is the Head of State of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the President and the government, with the President possessing extensive powers. The President is elected directly by the people for a term of six years. Since 1991, no...
still show a swastika design: the Cross of Liberty.
The Benedictine choir school at
Lambach AbbeyLambach Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Lambach in Austria.-History:A monastery was founded in about 1040 by Bishop Adalbero of Würzburg , which since 1056 has been a Benedictine abbey. During the 17th and 18th centuries a great deal of work in the Baroque style was carried out, much of it by...
, 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 armsA coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Historically, they were used by knights to identify them apart from enemy...
of Abbot Theoderich Hagn of the monastery in Lambach, which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field. The Lambach swastika is probably of Medieval origin. The Lambach depiction, in the Hindu style, did not inspire Hitler to use the symbol, as the Nazi Party's use of it stems from the
Thule SocietyThe Thule Society , originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum , was a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich, named after a mythical northern country from Greek legend...
and previous occult societies.
As the symbol of Nazism
In the wake of
widespread popular usageThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
, the Nazi Party (
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
NSDAP) formally adopted the swastika (in German:
Hakenkreuz (hook-cross)) in 1920. This was used on the party's flag (
right), badge, and armband. It had also been used unofficially by its predecessor, the German Workers Party,
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (
DAP).
In his 1925 work
Mein KampfMein Kampf, in English: My Struggle, is a book by Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology...
, Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
wrote 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
flagThe flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red and gold....
of the old
German EmpireThe German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
.) 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."
The swastika was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, acting life" (das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens) and as "race emblem of Germanism" (Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums) .
The use of the swastika was associated by Nazi theorists with their conjecture of Aryan cultural descent of the German people. Following the
NordicistThe Nordic race was one of the racial subcategories into which white people were divided by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century. The debates about this topic are nowadays mostly not considered scientific, but ideological...
version of the
Aryan invasion theoryThe term Aryan invasion theory may refer to:* Strictly, it refers to invasionist scenarios of prehistorical Indo-Aryan migrationsIt succeeded theories in 19th and early 20th century racialism:* Historical definitions of races in India* Aryan race...
, the Nazis claimed that the early Aryans of
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, from whose Vedic tradition the swastika sprang, were the prototypical white invaders. It was also widely believed that the Indian caste system had originated as a means to avoid racial mixing. The concept of racial purity was an ideology central to Nazism, though it is now considered
unscientificScientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific...
. For 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 close proximity of races. Thus, they saw fit to co-opt the sign as a symbol of the Aryan
master raceThe master race was a concept in Nazi ideology, which holds that the Teutonics , one of the branches of what in the late 19th and early 20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and "pure race"...
. The use of the swastika as a symbol of the
Aryan raceThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race...
dates back to writings of
Emile BurnoufÉmile-Louis Burnouf was a leading nineteenth-century Orientalist and racialist whose ideas influenced the development of theosophy and Aryanism. He was a professor at the faculté de lettres at Nancy university, then principal of the French School at Athens from 1867 to 1875...
. Following many other writers, the German nationalist poet
Guido von List Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List was an Austrian/German poet, journalist, writer, businessman and dealer of leather goods, mountaineer, hiker, dramatist, playwright, and rower, but was most notable as an occultist and völkisch author who is seen as one of the most important...
believed it to be a uniquely Aryan symbol.
Before the Nazis, the swastika was already in use as a symbol of German
völkisch nationalist movements (
Völkische BewegungThe völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic". The term völkisch, meaning "ethnic", derives from the German word Volk , corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and...
). In
Deutschland Erwache (ISBN 0-912138-69-6), Ulric of England (
sic) says:
[…] what inspired Hitler to use the swastika as a symbol for the NSDAP was its use by the Thule SocietyThe Thule Society , originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum , was a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich, named after a mythical northern country from Greek legend...
(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.
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] Lanz von Liebenfels, hoisted at Werfenstein Castle (AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
) a yellow flag with a swastika and four fleurs-de-lys.
However, Liebenfels was drawing on an already established use of the symbol.
On March 14, 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 September 15, 1935 (see
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
).
The swastika was used for badges and flags throughout
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
, particularly for government and military organizations, but also for "popular" organizations such as the
Reichsbund Deutsche Jägerschaft (German Hunting Society).
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. However, 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.
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 (e.g., Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung .-Origins:The first NSDAP-related organization of German youth was the Jugendbund...
);
- a 45° black swastika with a white outline was painted on the tail of aircraft of the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1933 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956.Schweizer Luftwaffe is also the name of the Swiss Air...
;
- a 45° black swastika outlined by thin white and black lines on a white disc (e.g., the German War Ensign);
- an upright black swastika outlined by thin white and black lines on a white disc (e.g., 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.
- a swastika with curved outer arms forming a broken circle, as worn by the SS Nordland Division
The 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, also known as Kampfverband Waräger, Germanische-Freiwilligen-Division, SS-Panzergrenadier-Division 11 or 11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland, was a Waffen SS, Panzergrenadier division recruited from foreign volunteers...
.
There were attempts to amalgamate Nazi and Hindu use of the swastika, notably by the French writer Savitri Devi who declared Hitler an
avatarIn Hinduism, Avatar or Avatara usually implies a deliberate descent from higher spiritual realms to lower realms of existence for special purposes, often translated into English as incarnation.Avatars that are of importance are mainly those of the Supreme Being...
of
VishnuVishnu , , is the Supreme God in Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God...
(see
Nazi mysticismSpeculation about National Socialism and Occultism has become part of popular culture since 1960. Aside from several popular documentaries, there are numerous books on the topic, most notably Le Matin des Magiciens and The Spear of Destiny ; The first examples of this literary genre appeared in...
).
Post-WWII stigmatization in Western countries
Because of its use by Hitler and the Nazis and, in modern times, by neo-Nazis and other
hate groupA hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates physical or verbal aggression toward or refusal to interact with persons on the basis of those persons' possession and/or exhibition of a certain characteristic...
s, the swastika is largely associated with Nazism and
white supremacyWhite supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance of whites....
(see
Western use of the Swastika in the early 20th centuryThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
) in most of the Western countries. As a result, all of its use, or its use as a Nazi or hate symbol is prohibited in some jurisdictions. Because of the stigma attached to the symbol, many buildings that have contained the symbol as decoration have had the symbol removed.
Steven HellerSteven Heller, , American art director, journalist, critic, author, and editor who specializes on topics related to graphic design....
, of the
School of Visual ArtsThe School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, has argued that from the moment it was "misappropriated" by the Nazis, it became a mark and weapon of hate, and could not be redeemed.
European Union
The
European Union's executive CommissionThe European Commission acts as an executive of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.The Commission operates in the method of cabinet government, with 27...
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. 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 Organisations 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. The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on January 29, 2007.
Germany
The German (and Austrian) postwar
criminal codeThe Strafgesetzbuch is the name of the German, Swiss, Liechtenstein and Austrian criminal law. It is often abbreviated to StGB. This article focuses on the German code.- History :...
makes the public showing of the
Hakenkreuz (the swastika) and other Nazi symbols illegal and punishable, except for scholarly reasons. It is even censored from the lithographs on boxes of model kits, and the decals that come in the box. 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 and Jain temples are exempt, as religious symbols cannot be banned in Germany.
A German fashion company was investigated for using traditional British-made folded leather buttons after complaints that they resembled swastikas. In response,
EspritEsprit Holdings Limited is a publicly owned manufacturer of apparel, footwear, accessories, jewellery and housewares under the ESPRIT label. The company is headquartered and managed from Kowloon, Hong Kong, and Ratingen, Germany. In the 2007–2008 business year, Esprit Holdings Limited generated...
destroyed two hundred thousand catalogues.
A controversy was stirred by the decision of several police departments to begin inquiries against anti-fascists. In late 2005 police raided the offices of the
punk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
label and mail order store "Nix Gut Records" and confiscated merchandise depicting crossed-out swastikas and fists smashing swastikas. In 2006 the
StadeStade is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany and part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region . It is the seat of the district named after it...
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.
On Friday, March 17, 2006, a member of the
BundestagThe Bundestag is the parliament of Germany. It was established with Germany's constitution of 1949 and is the successor of the earlier Reichstag...
Claudia RothClaudia Benedikta Roth is a German Green Party politician and one of the two current party chairs, together with Cem Özdemir.- Biography :...
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 March 15, 2007, the
Federal Court of Justice of GermanyThe Federal Court of Justice of Germany is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction in Germany. It is the supreme court in all matters of criminal and civil law...
(Bundesgerichtshof) reversed the charge, holding that the crossed-out symbols were "clearly directed against a revival of national-socialist endeavors", thereby settling the dispute for the future.
Finland
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
might be a notable exception amongst the modern Western countries regarding the public attitude towards swastikas in general.
The swastika was adopted by the
Finnish Air ForceThe Finnish Air Force is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. Its peacetime tasks are airspace surveillance, identification flights, and production of readiness formations for wartime conditions...
after 6 March 1918, when
Eric von RosenCount Carl Gustaf Bloomfield Eric von Rosen was a Swedish Honorary doctor, patron, explorer and ethnographer....
donated an aeroplane adorned with swastikas which was his personal good luck symbol from
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
to the
Finnish white armyThe White Guards is one translation of the Finnish term Suojeluskunta , which has received many different approximations in English, including Security Guard, Civil Guard, Civic Guards, National Guard, White Militia, Defence Corps, Protection Guard, Protection Corps and Protection...
. The swastika was officially adopted as the
nationality markingMilitary aircraft insignia are insignia applied to military aircraft to identify the nation or air force that the aircraft belongs to. Many insignia are in the form of a circular roundel or modified roundel; other shapes such as stars, crosses or triangles are also used.Insignia are often displayed...
on the
Finnish Air ForceThe Finnish Air Force is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. Its peacetime tasks are airspace surveillance, identification flights, and production of readiness formations for wartime conditions...
planes on 18 March 1918.
A "short-legged" version of the swastika was also used as a nationality marking on Finnish tanks and armoured vehicles.
The roundel was used until late 1944 when a substitution for a blue on white roundel was made. Existing decorations and unit flags of the Finnish Air Force were not altered, and they still feature the traditional blue swastika within a white circle.
The president of Finland is the grand master of the
Order of the White RoseThe Order of the White Rose of Finland is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor,...
. According to the protocol, the president shall wear the Cross of Liberty with Chains on formal occasions. The original design of the chains, decorated with swastikas, dates from 1918 by the artist
Akseli Gallen-KallelaAkseli Gallen-Kallela was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic . His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity.-Life:Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori , Finland...
. The Grand Cross with Chains has been awarded 11 times to foreign heads of state. To avoid misunderstandings, the swastika decorations were replaced by fir-crosses at the decision of President Kekkonen in 1963 after
Charles De GaulleCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II...
indicated he would refuse the award if it carried swastikas.
Also a design by Gallen-Kallela of 1918, the
Cross of LibertyThere are three official orders in Finland: the Order of the Cross of Liberty , the Order of the White Rose of Finland and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor, a...
has a swastika pattern in the arms of the cross. The Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the flag of the
President of FinlandThe President of Finland is the Head of State of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the President and the government, with the President possessing extensive powers. The President is elected directly by the people for a term of six years. Since 1991, no...
.
In December 2007, a silver replica of the WWII Finnish air defences relief ring decorated with swastika became available as a part of a charity campaign. The original war-time idea was that the public swap their precious metal rings for the State air defences relief ring, made of iron.
A traditional symbol that incorporates a swastika, the
tursaansydänThe tursaansydän or mursunsydän is an ancient symbol used in Northern Europe. It was especially popular in Lapland. Some say it was used on Lappish shaman drums...
, is used by
scoutsScouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, so that they may play constructive roles in society....
in some instances and a student organization. The village of Tursa uses the tursaansydän as a kind of a certificate of genuineness of products made there. Traditional textiles are still being made with swastikas as a part of traditional ornaments.
Hungary
In Hungary, it is a criminal misdemeanour to publicly display "totalitarian symbols", including the swastika, the SS insignia and the
Arrow CrossA cross whose arms end in arrowheads is called a "cross barby" or "cross barbee" in the traditional terminology of heraldry. In Christian use, the ends of this cross resemble the barbs of fish hooks, or fish spears. This alludes to the Ichthys symbol of Christ, and is suggestive of the "fishers...
, punishable by fine. Display for academic, educational, artistic or journalistic reasons is allowed. Note that the
hammer and sickleThe hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...
is also regarded as a totalitarian symbol and has the same restriction by Hungarian criminal law.
Poland
In
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, public display of Nazi symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years of imprisonment.
Iceland
EimskipEimskip is an Icelandic sea transportation company founded in 1914.Eimskip was acquired by The Avion Group from Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson in 2005. Eimskip is Iceland's largest shipping company....
(founded in 1914), a major import/export company in Iceland once used the Swastika as their company logo. Although they have since replaced their logo, the swastika remained on their old headquarters, located in downtown
ReykjavíkReykjavík is the capital and largest city of Iceland. Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's most northern capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
. As tourism to the country grew, it often became a subject of misunderstanding when foreign tourists targeted the building as a place of Nazi support and antisemitism. When the Radisson SAS hotel franchise bought the building, the company was banned from destroying the symbol since the building was on the list of historical sites in Iceland. A compromise was made when the company was allowed to cover the symbol with the numbers 1919 which was the year when the building was erected.
Ireland
The
Swastika LaundryThe Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, a district of Dublin, Ireland. They used electric vans, that were painted in red with a black swastika on a white background, to collect and deliver laundry to customers.In 1939, the laundry changed its...
was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road,
BallsbridgeBallsbridge is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, named for the bridge spanning the River Dodder on the south side of the city. The sign on the bridge still proclaims it as "Ball's Bridge" in recognition of the fact that the original bridge in this location was built and owned by a Mr...
, a district of
DublinDublin is the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the...
,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
. In the fifties
Heinrich BöllHeinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...
came across a van belonging to the company while he was staying in Ireland, leading to some awkward moments before the could realize 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..
Brazil
The use of the swastika or any Nazi symbol, their manufacture, distribution or broadcasting,with the intent to propagate Nazism is a crime in
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
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.
United States
The swastika symbol was popular as a good luck or religious/spiritual symbol in the United States, prior to its association with Nazi Germany. The symbol remains visible on numerous historic buildings, including sites that are listed on the
National Register of Historic PlacesThe National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Satirical use
A book featuring "120 Funny Swastika Cartoons" was published in 2008 by New York Cartoonist Sam Gross. The author said he created the cartoons in response to excessive news coverage given to swastika vandals, that his intent "...is to reduce the swastika to something humorous."
The powerful symbolism acquired by the swastika has often been used in graphic design and propaganda as a means of
drawing Nazi comparisonsReductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, or reductio ad Nazium is an ad hominem or ad misericordiam argument, and is a formal fallacy in logic. The name is a pun on reductio ad absurdum...
; examples include the cover of Stuart Eizenstat's 2003 book
Imperfect Justice, publicity materials for Costa-Gavras's 2002 film
Amen, and a billboard that was erected opposite the U.S. Interests Section in
HavanaHavana is the capital city, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city is one of the 14 Cuban provinces. The city/province has 2.4 million inhabitants, and the urban area over 3.7 million, making Havana the largest city in both Cuba and the Caribbean region...
, Cuba, in 2004, which juxtaposed images of the
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuseBeginning in 2004, accounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention...
pictures with a swastika.
In the Christian novel Hadassah, by Tommy Tenney, a fictional account of the Biblical story of Esther, references to a "twisted cross" appear as a symbol of the hatred of the Agagites toward the Jewish people. It is clear from the text that this is a veiled reference to a swastika. While the symbol has surfaced in archaeological digs throughout Middle Eastern countries in historical context with the Medes and the Persians, there is no evidence that it was used as a symbolism of Jewish hatred at that time in history. It appears this was placed in the book by the author for it's dramatic effects.
Controversy over Asian products
In recent years, controversy has erupted when consumer goods bearing the symbol have been exported (often unintentionally) to North America.
When a ten-year-old boy in
Lynbrook, New YorkLynbrook is a village in Nassau County, New York, USA . The population was 19,911 at the 2000 census, but had increased to 29,000 by 2006.The Village of Lynbrook is inside the Town of Hempstead....
bought a set of
Pokémonis a media franchise published by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world,...
cards imported from Japan in 1999, his parents complained after finding that two of the cards contained the
Manji symbol which is the mirror image of the Nazi swastika. This also caused a lot of concern amongst fans from Jewish communities.
Nintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel...
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 LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States of America. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and...
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".
In 2002,
Christmas crackerChristmas crackers or bon-bons are an integral part of Christmas celebrations in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, other Commonwealth countries, Ireland and countries of the former Soviet Union . A cracker consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of...
s containing plastic toy
pandaThe Giant Panda is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body...
s sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after complaints from consumers in
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The manufacturer, based in China, explained 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. In 2007, Spanish fashion chain Zara has withdrawn 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.
Mongolia
Swastika has been and still is an important symbol in Mongolian culture, meaning good luck. It may be found in many places including monasteries. However, the symbol is also used by groups that want to show affinity to Nazism.
Japan
Japanese maps continue to use the swastika symbol to denote a Buddhist temple.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Obama,+Fukui+Prefecture,+Japan&sll=33.937252,-83.431707&sspn=0.008759,0.0193126&ie=UTF8&cd=2&geocode=FameHQIdVFQXCA&split=0&ll=35.474231,135.727844&spn=0.038933,0.055189&t=h&z=14&iwloc=A
Indian Subcontinent
In the
IndosphereIndosphere is a subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman languages as defined by linguist James Matisoff, which includes languages that are typologically and morphologically a closeness to Indo-Aryan languages...
(
South AsiaSouth Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east...
,
Greater IndiaThe term Greater India refers to the historical spread of the Culture of India beyond the Indian subcontinent proper. This concerns the spread of Hinduism in Southeast Asia in particular, introduced by the Indianized kingdoms of the 5th to 15th centuries, but may also extend to the earlier spread...
), the swastika remains ubiquitous as a symbol of wealth and good fortune. In
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
and
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, electoral ballot papers are stamped with a round swastika-like pattern (to ensure that the accidental ink imprint on the other side of a folded ballot paper can be correctly identified as such). Many businesses and other organisations, such as the
Ahmedabad Stock ExchangeAhmedabad Stock Exchange or ASE is the second oldest exchange of India located in the city of Ahmedabad in the western part of the country. It is recognized by Securities Contract Act, 1956 as permanent stock exchange...
and the Nepal Chamber of Commerce, use the swastika in their logos. The red swastika was suggested as an emblem of
International Red Cross and Red Crescent MovementThe International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers worldwide which started to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for the human being, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any...
in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
and
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
, but the idea was not implemented. Swastikas can be found practically everywhere in Indian and Nepalese cities, on buses, buildings, auto-rickshaws, and clothing.
Tajikistan
In 2005, authorities in
TajikistanTajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east...
called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national
symbolA symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may stand for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield...
. President
Emomali RahmonovEmomalii Rahmon has served as the head of state of the Republic of Tajikistan since 1992, under the position of President since 1994...
declared the swastika an
AryanAryan is an English language loanword denoting variously*in historical or dated usage,**the Indo-Iranian languages and their speakers, viz. the Iranian and Indo-Aryan peoples**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers,...
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.”
Theosophical Society
The
Theosophical SocietyThe Theosophical Society was an organization formed in 1875 to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. Theosophy is an active belief system today, and through a process of schism has also given rise to many other mystical beliefs and organisations.-Formation:The...
uses a swastika as part of its seal, along with an
AumAum Aum Aum (also Om, written in Devanagari as , in Chinese and Japanese as , in Tibetan as , in Sanskrit known as lit. "to sound out loudly" or lit...
, a hexagram, a
Star of DavidThe Star of David or Shield of David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.It is named after King David of ancient Israel; and its earliest...
, an
AnkhThe ankh was the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants ˁ-n-ḫ...
and an
OuroborosThe Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things...
. Unlike the much more recent Raëlian movement (see below), 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"..
Raëlian Movement
The
Raëlian MovementRaëlism, or The Raëlian movement, is a UFO cult that believes that planet Earth and its people had received contacts by ancient extraterrestrials with the resemblance of human beings. Members, called Raëlians, believe that civilizations of the ancient and medieval eras became convinced that the...
, who believe that Extra-Terrestrials originally created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced
Star of DavidThe Star of David or Shield of David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.It is named after King David of ancient Israel; and its earliest...
and a Swastika. The Raelians state that the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in time i.e. there being no beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic . 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 .
Ananda Marga
The
TantraTantra , or tantram is a religious philosophy according to which Shakti is usually the main deity worshipped, and the universe is regarded as the divine play of Shakti and Shiva...
-based
new religious movementA new religious movement is a faith-based community, or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of recent origin. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations...
Ananda MargaAnanda Marga, officially known as Ananda Marga Pracharaka Samgha meaning "the organization for the propagation of the path of bliss" is a "social and spiritual movement" founded in Jamalpur, Bihar, India in 1955 by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar .Ananda Marga followers describe Ananda Marga as a practical...
(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.
According to Ananda Marga:
External or physical service acted out through the motor organs is symbolised by the triangle pointing upwards. Internal or spiritual service done through channelizing of mental energy to the mantra is symbolized by the triangle pointing downwards...Attaining that state of oneness with the Generator, Operator and Destroyer of this universe is symbolised by the swastika which means victory.
Falun Gong
The
Falun GongFalun Gong is a system of beliefs and practices founded in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992. The practice emerged at the end of China's "qigong boom" as a form of qigong practice. Its teachings are influenced by both Taoism and Buddhism.The number of Falun Gong practitioners is unknown, and the group...
qigongQigong is an internal Chinese meditative practice which often uses slow graceful movements and controlled breathing techniques to promote the circulation of qi within the human body, and enhance a practitioner's overall health...
movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with
yin-and-yangIn Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn...
symbols. The usage is taken from traditional Chinese symbolism, and here alludes to
chakraChakra is a Sanskrit word that translates as "wheel" or "turning"....
-like portion of the esoteric human anatomy, located in the stomach.
Neopaganism
The
Odinic RiteThe Odinic Rite is a Germanic neopagan organisation, practicing a form of Germanic neopaganism termed Odinism after the chief god of Norse mythology, Odin.-Odinism:...
claims the "
fylfotFylfot or fylfot cross is a synonym for swastika, sometimes used in Britain.However – at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson – the fylfot differs somewhat from the archetypal form of the swastika: always upright and typically with truncated limbs, as...
" as a "holy symbol of
OdinismOdinism may refer to:*historical Norse paganism*within Norse paganism, the cult of Odin *various currents of Germanic neopaganism, especially in British neopaganism....
", citing the pre-Christian Germanic use of the symbol.
See also
- Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
- Brigid's cross
Brigid's cross, Brighid's cross, or Brigit's cross, often with the "Saint" prefix, or Cros Bríde, Crosóg Bríde or Bogha Bríde, though not recorded before the seventeenth century, is an Irish symbol. Though a Christian symbol, it possibly derives from the pagan sunwheel. It is usually made from...
- Camunian rose
The Camunian rose is the name given to a particular symbol represented among the rock carvings of Val Camonica. It consists of a meandering closed line that winds around nine cup marks...
- Celtic cross
A Celtic cross is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. The early Celtic stone high cross is generally in the form of a normal cross with a ring joining the arms for structural strength, often with an extended rectangular or cubic base that is mounted on the...
- Fascist symbolism
As there were many different manifestations of fascism, especially during the interwar years, there were also many different symbols of Fascist movements.-Common symbolism of fascist movements:...
- Forest swastika
The forest swastika was a patch of larch trees covering area of pine forest near Zernikow, Uckermark district, Brandenburg, in northeastern Germany, carefully arranged to look like a swastika. It was probably planted near the height of Hitler's power, in the 1930s.-History:It is unclear why the...
- Karl Haushofer
Karl Ernst Haushofer was a German General, geographer and geopolitician. Through his student Rudolf Hess, Haushofer's ideas may have influenced the development of Adolf Hitler's expansionist strategies, although Haushofer denied direct influence on the Nazi regime.- Biography :Haushofer belonged...
- Lauburu
The lauburu or Basque cross has four comma-shaped heads similar to the Japanese tomoe. It can be constructed with a compass and straightedge, beginning with the formation of a square template; each head can be drawn from a neighboring vertex of this template with two compass settings, with one...
or Basque cross
- The Red Swastika Society
The Red Swastika Society is a voluntary association founded in China in 1922 by Qian Neng-kun , Du Bing-yin and Li Jia-bo as the philanthropic branch of the Daodeshe "Society of Dao and Virtue", a syncretist Daoist school, which changed at the same time its name to Daoyuan...
(China)
- Rodło
- Sauwastika
The term sauwastika or sauvastika is a term sometimes used to distinguish the "left-facing" from the "right-facing" form of the swastika symbol. The "left-facing" variant is favoured in Bön and Gurung Dharma where it is called yungdrung in Bon and Gurung Yantra in Gurung Dharma...
- Solar symbols
- Sun cross
The sun cross, a cross inside a circle, is a common symbol in artefacts of Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods....
- Swastika curve
The swastika curve is the name given by Cundy and Rollett to the quartic plane curve with the Cartesian equationor, equivalently, the polar equation...
- Swastika Laundry
The Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, a district of Dublin, Ireland. They used electric vans, that were painted in red with a black swastika on a white background, to collect and deliver laundry to customers.In 1939, the laundry changed its...
- Triskelion
A triskelion or triskele is a symbol consisting of three interlocked spirals, or three bent human legs, or any similar symbol with three protrusions and a threefold rotational symmetry....
, including the three-legged badge of the Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , or Mann , is a self-governing British Crown dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Britain and Ireland. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Crown is represented by a Lieutenant Governor...
- Tursaansydän
The tursaansydän or mursunsydän is an ancient symbol used in Northern Europe. It was especially popular in Lapland. Some say it was used on Lappish shaman drums...
- Western use of the Swastika in the early 20th century
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
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General
Dharmic religions
Early Western use
Nazi use
Miscellaneous