Swastika

:For the town in Ontario, see Swastika, Ontario.

History

The earliest swastika-like symbols preserved appear on pottery dating to the 5th millennium BC, as part of the "Vinca script". Pottery dating to ca. 2000 BC found at Sintashta is also decorated with the swastika symbol http://steppes.ru/foto/keram_shem.jpg. Swastika-like symbols also appear in Bronze and Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus (Koban culture), and Azerbayjan, as well as of Scythians and Sarmatians http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/001/073/5-44.gif. 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.

Related Topics:
5th millennium BC - Vinca script - Sintashta - Caucasus - Koban culture - Azerbayjan - Scythian - Sarmatian

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In antiquity, the swastika was used extensively by Hittites,{{ref|crystallinks}} Celts and Greeks, among others. It occurs in other Asian, European, African and Native American cultures – sometimes as a geometrical motif, sometimes as a religious symbol. The swastika is the sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Related Topics:
Hittites - Celt - Greeks - Asia - Europe - Africa - Native American - Hinduism - Buddhism - Jainism

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The ubiquity of the swastika symbol is easily explained by it being a very simple symbol that will arise independently when people incise patterns on pottery or stone. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via cultural diffusion or an explanation along the lines of Carl Jung's collective unconscious.

Related Topics:
Carl Jung - Collective unconscious

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Yet another explanation is suggested by Carl Sagan in his book Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world.

Related Topics:
Carl Sagan - Chinese - Comet

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The swastika symbol is sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, both dating from about the sixth century BC. In Hinduism, the swastika symbolizes, in various contexts: luck, the sun, Brahma, or the concept of samsara. Buddhism in particular enjoyed great success, spreading eastward and taking hold in southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan by the end of the first millennium. The use of the swastika by the indigenous Bön faith of Tibet, as well as syncretic religions, such as Cao Dai of Vietnam and Falun Gong of China, is thought to be borrowed from Buddhism as well. Similarly, the existence of the swastika as a solar symbol among the Akan civilization of southwest Africa may have been the result of cultural transfer along the African slave routes around AD 1500.

Related Topics:
Buddhism - Jainism - Sixth century BC - Symbolizes - Luck - Sun - Brahma - Samsara - Southeast Asia - China - Korea - Japan - Bön - Tibet - Syncretic - Cao Dai - Vietnam - Falun Gong - Akan - Africa - African slave route - 1500

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The existence of the swastika symbol in the Americas is a clear challenge to the diffusion theory. While some have proposed that the swastika was secretly transferred to North America by an early seafaring civilization on Eurasia, a separate but parallel development of religious symbolism is considered the most likely explanation.

Related Topics:
Americas - North America

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Adoption of the swastika in the West

The discovery of the Indo-European language group in the 1790s led to a great effort by archaeologists to link the pre-history of European peoples to the ancient Aryans (Indo-Iranians). Following his discovery of objects bearing the swastika in the ruins of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann consulted two leading Sanskrit scholars of the day, Emile Burnouf and Max Müller. Schliemann concluded that the Swastika was a specifically Indo-European symbol. Later discoveries of the motif among the remains of the Hittites and of ancient Iran seemed to confirm this theory. This idea was taken up by many other writers, and the swastika quickly became popular in the West, appearing in many designs from the 1880s to the 1920s.

Related Topics:
Indo-European language - 1790s - European - Aryan - Troy - Heinrich Schliemann - Emile Burnouf - Max Müller - Iran - West - 1880s - 1920s

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The religious meanings of the symbol were subverted in the early twentieth century when it was adopted as the emblem of the National Socialist German Workers Party. This association occurred because Nazism stated that the historical Aryans were the forefathers of modern Germans and then proposed that, because of this, the subjugation of the world by Germany was desirable, and even predestined. The swastika was used as a convenient symbol to emphasize this mythical Aryan-German correspondence. Since World War II, some Westerners see the swastika as solely a Nazi symbol, leading to incorrect assumptions about its pre-Nazi use and confusion about its sacred religious status in Hinduism.

Related Topics:
Twentieth century - National Socialist German Workers Party - Nazism - World War II - Westerners

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