fbpx
Wikipedia

Swastika

January 26, 2023

For other uses, see Swastika (disambiguation).

The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis.[1][2][3][4] It continues to be used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.[5][6][7][8][1] It generally takes the form of a cross,[A] the arms of which are of equal length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms, each bent midway at a right angle.[10][11]

The swastika is a symbol with many styles and meanings and can be found in many cultures.
The appropriation of the swastika by the Nazi Party and neo-Nazis is the most recognisable modern use of the symbol in the Western world.

The word swastika comes from Sanskrit: स्वस्तिक, romanized: svastika, meaning "conducive to well-being".[12][1] In Hinduism, the right-facing symbol (clockwise) (卐) is called swastika, symbolizing surya ("sun"), prosperity and good luck, while the left-facing symbol (counter-clockwise) (卍) is called sauwastika, symbolising night or tantric aspects of Kali.[1] In Jain symbolism, it represents Suparshvanatha – the seventh of 24 Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers and saviours), while in Buddhist symbolism it represents the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.[1][13][14] In several major Indo-European religions, the swastika symbolises lightning bolts, representing the thunder god and the king of the gods, such as Indra in Vedic Hinduism, Zeus in the ancient Greek religion, Jupiter in the ancient Roman religion, and Thor in the ancient Germanic religion.[15] The symbol is found in the archeological remains of the Indus Valley Civilisation[16] and Samarra, as well as in early Byzantine and Christian artwork.[8]

Used for the first time by far-right Romanian politician A. C. Cuza as a symbol of international antisemitism prior to World War I,[17][18][19] it was a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck for most of the Western world until the 1930s,[2] when the German Nazi Party adopted the swastika as an emblem of the Aryan race. As a result of World War II and the Holocaust, in the West it continues to be strongly associated with Nazism, antisemitism,[20][21] white supremacism,[22][23] or simply evil.[24][25] As a consequence, its use in some countries, including Germany, is prohibited by law.[B] However, the swastika remains a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain countries such as Nepal, India, Thailand, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, China and Japan, and by some peoples, such as the Navajo people of the Southwest United States. It is also commonly used in Hindu marriage ceremonies and Dipavali celebrations.

In various European languages, it is known as the fylfot, gammadion, tetraskelion, or cross cramponnée (a term in Anglo-Norman heraldry); German: Hakenkreuz; French: croix gammée; Italian: croce uncinata; Latvian: ugunskrusts. In Mongolian it is called хас (khas) and mainly used in seals. In Chinese it is called 卍字 (wànzì), pronounced manji in Japanese, manja (만자) in Korean and vạn tự / chữ vạn in Vietnamese. In Balti/ Tibetan language it is called Yung drung.[citation needed]

Reverence for the swastika symbol in Asian cultures, in contrast to the stigma attached to it in the West, has led to misinterpretations and misunderstandings.[2][26]

Etymology and nomenclature

 
Drawing of a swastika on the Snoldelev Stone (9th century)

The word swastika has been used in the Indian subcontinent since 500 BCE. The word was first recorded by the ancient linguist Pāṇini in his work Ashtadhyayi.[27] It is alternatively spelled in contemporary texts as svastika,[28] and other spellings were occasionally used in the 19th and early 20th century, such as suastika.[29] It was derived from the Sanskrit term (Devanagari स्वस्तिक), which transliterates to svastika under the commonly used IAST transliteration system, but is pronounced closer to swastika when letters are used with their English values.

An important early use of the word swastika in a European text was in 1871 with the publications of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered more than 1,800 ancient samples of the swastika symbol and its variants while digging the Hisarlik mound near the Aegean Sea coast for the history of Troy. Schliemann linked his findings to the Sanskrit swastika.[30][31][32]

The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti, which is composed of su 'good, well' and asti 'is; it is; there is'.[33] The word swasti occurs frequently in the Vedas as well as in classical literature, meaning "health, luck, success, prosperity", and it was commonly used as a greeting.[34][35] The final ka is a common suffix that could have multiple meanings.[36] According to Monier-Williams, a majority of scholars consider it a solar symbol.[34] The sign implies something fortunate, lucky, or auspicious, and it denotes auspiciousness or well-being.[34]

The earliest known use of the word swastika is in Panini's Ashtadhyayi, which uses it to explain one of the Sanskrit grammar rules, in the context of a type of identifying mark on a cow's ear.[33] Most scholarship suggests that Panini lived in or before the 4th century BCE,[37][38] possibly in 6th or 5th century BCE.[39][40]

By the 19th century, the term swastika was adopted into the English lexicon, replacing gammadion from Greek γαμμάδιον. In 1878, Irish scholar Charles Graves used swastika as the common English name for the symbol, after defining it as equivalent to the French term croix gammée – a cross with arms shaped like the Greek letter gamma (Γ).[41] Shortly thereafter, British antiquarians Edward Thomas and Robert Sewell separately published their studies about the symbol, using swastika as the common English term.[42][43]

The concept of a "reversed" swastika was probably first made among European scholars by Eugène Burnouf in 1852, and taken up by Schliemann in Ilios (1880), based on a letter from Max Müller that quotes Burnouf. The term sauwastika is used in the sense of "backwards swastika" by Eugène Goblet d'Alviella (1894): "In India it [the gammadion] bears the name of swastika, when its arms are bent towards the right, and sauwastika when they are turned in the other direction."[44]

Other names for the symbol include:

  • tetragammadion (Greek: τετραγαμμάδιον) or cross gammadion (Latin: crux gammata; French: croix gammée), as each arm resembles the Greek letter Γ (gamma)[10]
  • hooked cross (German: Hakenkreuz), angled cross (Winkelkreuz), or crooked cross (Krummkreuz)
  • cross cramponned, cramponnée, or cramponny in heraldry, as each arm resembles a crampon or angle-iron (German: Winkelmaßkreuz)
  • fylfot, chiefly in heraldry and architecture
  • tetraskelion (Greek: τετρασκέλιον), literally meaning 'four-legged', especially when composed of four conjoined legs (compare triskelion/triskele [Greek: τρισκέλιον])[45]
  • ugunskrusts (Latvian for "Fire Cross"; other names – Cross of Fire, Pērkonkrusts (Cross of Thunder (Thunder Cross)), Cross of Perun (Cross of Perkūnas), Cross of Branches, Cross of Laima)
  • whirling logs (Navajo): can denote abundance, prosperity, healing, and luck[46]

Appearance

 
 
Left: the left-facing sauwastika is a sacred symbol in the Bon and Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions. Right: the right-facing swastika appears commonly in Hinduism, Jainism and Sri Lankan Buddhism.[47][48]

All swastikas are bent crosses based on a chiral symmetry, but they appear with different geometric details: as compact crosses with short legs, as crosses with large arms and as motifs in a pattern of unbroken lines. Chirality describes an absence of reflective symmetry, with the existence of two versions that are mirror images of each other. The mirror-image forms are typically described as left-facing or left-hand (卍) and right-facing or right-hand (卐).

The compact swastika can be seen as a chiral irregular icosagon (20-sided polygon) with fourfold (90°) rotational symmetry. Such a swastika proportioned on a 5 × 5 square grid and with the broken portions of its legs shortened by one unit can tile the plane by translation alone. The Nazi swastika used a 5 × 5 diagonal grid, but with the legs unshortened.[49]

Written characters

 
 
卍 and 卐 characters.

The swastika was adopted as a standard character in Chinese, "卍" (pinyin: wàn) and as such entered various other East Asian languages, including Chinese script. In Japanese the symbol is called "卍" (Hepburn: manji) or "卍字" (manji).

The swastika is included in the Unicode character sets of two languages. In the Chinese block it is U+534D 卍 (left-facing) and U+5350 for the swastika 卐 (right-facing);[50] The latter has a mapping in the original Big5 character set,[51] but the former does not (although it is in Big5+[52]). In Unicode 5.2, two swastika symbols and two swastikas were added to the Tibetan block: swastika U+0FD5 ࿕ RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN, U+0FD7 ࿗ RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS, and swastikas U+0FD6 ࿖ LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN, U+0FD8 ࿘ LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS.[53]

Meaning

European hypotheses of the swastika are often treated in conjunction with cross symbols in general, such as the sun cross of Bronze Age religion. Beyond its certain presence in the "proto-writing" symbol systems, such as the Vinča script,[54] which appeared during the Neolithic.[55]

North pole

 
Approximate representation of the Tiānmén 天門 ("Gate of Heaven") or Tiānshū 天樞 ("Pivot of Heaven") as the precessional north celestial pole, with α Ursae Minoris as the pole star, with the spinning Chariot constellations in the four phases of time. Tiān, generally translated as "heaven" in Chinese theology, refers to the northern celestial pole (北極 Běijí), the pivot and the vault of the sky with its spinning constellations. The celestial pivot can be represented by wàn 卍 ("myriad things").

According to René Guénon, the swastika represents the north pole, and the rotational movement around a centre or immutable axis (axis mundi), and only secondly it represents the Sun as a reflected function of the north pole. As such it is a symbol of life, of the vivifying role of the supreme principle of the universe, the absolute God, in relation to the cosmic order. It represents the activity (the Hellenic Logos, the Hindu Om, the Chinese Taiyi, "Great One") of the principle of the universe in the formation of the world.[56] According to Guénon, the swastika in its polar value has the same meaning of the yin and yang symbol of the Chinese tradition, and of other traditional symbols of the working of the universe, including the letters Γ (gamma) and G, symbolising the Great Architect of the Universe of Masonic thought.[57]

According to the scholar Reza Assasi, the swastika represents the north ecliptic north pole centred in ζ Draconis, with the constellation Draco as one of its beams. He argues that this symbol was later attested as the four-horse chariot of Mithra in ancient Iranian culture. They believed the cosmos was pulled by four heavenly horses who revolved around a fixed centre in a clockwise direction. He suggests that this notion later flourished in Roman Mithraism, as the symbol appears in Mithraic iconography and astronomical representations.[58]

According to the Russian archaeologist Gennady Zdanovich, who studied some of the oldest examples of the symbol in Sintashta culture, the swastika symbolises the universe, representing the spinning constellations of the celestial north pole centred in α Ursae Minoris, specifically the Little and Big Dipper (or Chariots), or Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.[59] Likewise, according to René Guénon the swastika is drawn by visualising the Big Dipper/Great Bear in the four phases of revolution around the pole star.[60]

Comet

 
Depiction of comets from the Book of Silk, Han dynasty, 2nd century BCE

In their 1985 book Comet, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan argue that the appearance of a rotating comet with a four-pronged tail as early as 2,000 years BCE could explain why the swastika is found in the cultures of both the Old World and the pre-Columbian Americas. The Han dynasty Book of Silk (2nd century BCE) depicts such a comet with a swastika-like symbol.[61]

Bob Kobres, in a 1992 paper, contends that the swastika-like comet on the Han-dynasty manuscript was labelled a "long tailed pheasant star" (dixing) because of its resemblance to a bird's foot or footprint.[62] Similar comparisons had been made by J. F. Hewitt in 1907,[63] as well as a 1908 article in Good Housekeeping.[64] Kobres goes on to suggest an association of mythological birds and comets also outside of China.[62]

Four winds

In Native American culture, particularly among the Pima people of Arizona, the swastika is a symbol of the four winds. Anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing noted that among the Pima the symbol of the four winds is made from a cross with the four curved arms (similar to a broken sun cross), and concludes "the right-angle swastika is primarily a representation of the circle of the four wind gods standing at the head of their trails, or directions."[65]

Prehistory

 
Prehistoric stone in Iran

According to Joseph Campbell, the earliest known swastika is from 10,000 BCE – part of "an intricate meander pattern of joined-up swastikas" found on a late paleolithic figurine of a bird, carved from mammoth ivory, found in Mezine, Ukraine. It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylised picture of a stork in flight.[66] As the carving was found near phallic objects, this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol.[67]

In the mountains of Iran, there are swastikas or spinning wheels inscribed on stone walls, which are estimated to be more than 7,000 years old. One instance is in Khorashad, Birjand, on the holy wall Lakh Mazar.[68][69]

Mirror-image swastikas (clockwise and counter-clockwise) have been found on ceramic pottery in the Devetashka cave, Bulgaria, dated to 6,000 BCE.[70]

Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3,000 BCE.[71] The investigators put forth the hypothesis that the swastika moved westward from the Indian subcontinent to Finland, Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and other parts of Europe.[72][better source needed] In England, neolithic or Bronze Age stone carvings of the symbol have been found on Ilkley Moor, such as the Swastika Stone.

Swastikas have also been found on pottery in archaeological digs in Africa, in the area of Kush and on pottery at the Jebel Barkal temples,[73] in Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus (Koban culture), and in Neolithic China in the Majiabang[74] and Majiayao[75] cultures.

Other Iron Age attestations of the swastika can be associated with Indo-European cultures such as the Illyrians,[76] Indo-Iranians, Celts, Greeks, Germanic peoples and Slavs. In Sintashta culture's "Country of Towns", ancient Indo-European settlements in southern Russia, it has been found a great concentration of some of the oldest swastika patterns.[59]

The swastika is also seen in Egypt during the Coptic period. Textile number T.231-1923 held at the V&A Museum in London includes small swastikas in its design. This piece was found at Qau-el-Kebir, near Asyut, and is dated between 300 and 600 CE.[77]

The Tierwirbel (the German for "animal whorl" or "whirl of animals"[78]) is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia, the Eurasian Steppe, and later also in Iron Age Scythian and European (Baltic[79] and Germanic) culture, showing rotational symmetric arrangement of an animal motif, often four birds' heads. Even wider diffusion of this "Asiatic" theme has been proposed, to the Pacific and even North America (especially Moundville).[80]

Historical use

In Asia, the swastika symbol first appears in the archaeological record around[71] 3000 BCE in the Indus Valley Civilisation.[26][84] It also appears in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In all these cultures, the swastika symbol does not appear to occupy any marked position or significance, appearing as just one form of a series of similar symbols of varying complexity. In the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, the swastika was a symbol of the revolving sun, infinity, or continuing creation.[85][86] It is one of the most common symbols on Mesopotamian coins.[1]

The icon has been of spiritual significance to Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[8][1] The swastika is a sacred symbol in the Bön religion, native to Tibet.

South Asia

Hinduism

Hindu Swastikas
 
Hindu swastika
 
Sauwastika

The swastika is an important Hindu symbol.[8][1] The swastika symbol is commonly used before entrances or on doorways of homes or temples, to mark the starting page of financial statements, and mandalas constructed for rituals such as weddings or welcoming a newborn.[1][87]

The swastika has a particular association with Diwali, being drawn in rangoli (coloured sand) or formed with deepak lights on the floor outside Hindu houses and on wall hangings and other decorations.[88]

In the diverse traditions within Hinduism, both the clockwise and counterclockwise swastika are found, with different meanings. The clockwise or right hand icon is called swastika, while the counterclockwise or left hand icon is called sauwastika or sauvastika.[1] The clockwise swastika is a solar symbol (Surya), suggesting the motion of the Sun in India (the northern hemisphere), where it appears to enter from the east, then ascend to the south at midday, exiting to the west.[1] The counterclockwise sauwastika is less used; it connotes the night, and in tantric traditions it is an icon for the goddess Kali, the terrifying form of Devi Durga.[1] The symbol also represents activity, karma, motion, wheel, and in some contexts the lotus.[5][6] According to Norman McClelland its symbolism for motion and the Sun may be from shared prehistoric cultural roots.[89]

Buddhism

 
Swastika with 24 beads japamala, primarily used in Malaysian Buddhism

In Buddhism, the swastika is considered to symbolise the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.[1][13] The left-facing sauwastika is often imprinted on the chest, feet or palms of Buddha images. It is an aniconic symbol for the Buddha in many parts of Asia and homologous with the dharma wheel.[6] The shape symbolises eternal cycling, a theme found in the samsara doctrine of Buddhism.[6]

The swastika symbol is common in esoteric tantric traditions of Buddhism, along with Hinduism, where it is found with chakra theories and other meditative aids.[87] The clockwise symbol is more common, and contrasts with the counter clockwise version common in the Tibetan Bon tradition and locally called yungdrung.[90]

Jainism

 
Jain symbol (Prateek) containing a swastika

In Jainism, it is a symbol of the seventh tīrthaṅkara, Suparśvanātha.[1] In the Śvētāmbara tradition, it is also one of the aṣṭamaṅgala or eight auspicious symbols. All Jain temples and holy books must contain the swastika and ceremonies typically begin and end with creating a swastika mark several times with rice around the altar. Jains use rice to make a swastika in front of statues and then put an offering on it, usually a ripe or dried fruit, a sweet (Hindi: मिठाई miṭhāī), or a coin or currency note. The four arms of the swastika symbolise the four places where a soul could be reborn in samsara, the cycle of birth and death – svarga "heaven", naraka "hell", manushya "humanity" or tiryancha "as flora or fauna" – before the soul attains moksha "salvation" as a siddha, having ended the cycle of birth and death and become omniscient.[7]

East Asia

Main articles: Chinese_auspicious_ornaments_in_textile_and_clothing § Wan; and List of Chinese symbols, designs, and art motifs

The swastika is an auspicious symbol in China where it was introduced from India with Buddhism.[91] In 693, during the Tang dynasty, it was declared as "the source of all good fortune" and was called wan by Wu Zetian becoming a Chinese word.[91] The Chinese character for wan (pinyin: wàn) is similar to the swastika in shape and can be appeared into two different variations:《卐》and 《卍》. As the Chinese character wan (卐 and/or 卍) is homonym for the Chinese word of "ten thousand" (万) and "infinity", as such the Chinese character is itself a symbol of immortality[92] and infinity.[93]: 175  It was also a representation of longevity.[93]: 175 

The Chinese character wan could be used as a stand-alone《卐》or《卍》or as be used as pairs《卐 卍》in Chinese visual arts, decorative arts, and clothing due to its auspicious connotation.[93]: 175 

Adding the character wan (卐 and/or 卍) to other auspicious Chinese symbols or patterns can multiply that wish by 10,000 times.[91][93]: 175  It can be combined with other Chinese characters, such as the Chinese character shou《壽》for longevity where it is sometimes even integrated into the Chinese character shou to augment the menaning of longevity.[93]: 175 

The paired swastika symbols (卐 and 卍) are included, at least since the Liao Dynasty (907–1125 CE), as part of the Chinese writing system and are variant characters for 《萬》 or 《万》 (wàn in Mandarin, 《만》(man) in Korean, Cantonese, and Japanese, vạn in Vietnamese) meaning "myriad".[94]

The character wan can also be stylized in the form of the xiangyun, Chinese auspicious clouds.

  •  

    Chinese character wan integrated into one of the stylistic versions of the Chinese character shou

  •  

    Paired character wan on a dragon robe, Qing dynasty

Japan

 
The mon (family crest) of the Hachisuka clan

When the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in the 8th century, the swastika was adopted into the Japanese language and culture. It is commonly referred as the manji (lit. "10,000-character"). Since the Middle Ages, it has been used as a mon by various Japanese families such as Tsugaru clan, Hachisuka clan or around 60 clans that belong to Tokugawa clan.[95] On Japanese maps, a swastika (left-facing and horizontal) is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple. The right-facing swastika is often referred to as the gyaku manji (逆卍, lit. "reverse swastika") or migi manji (右卍, lit. "right swastika"), and can also be called kagi jūji (鉤十字, literally "hook cross").

In Chinese and Japanese art, the swastika is often found as part of a repeating pattern. One common pattern, called sayagata in Japanese, comprises left- and right-facing swastikas joined by lines.[96] As the negative space between the lines has a distinctive shape, the sayagata pattern is sometimes called the key fret motif in English.[citation needed]

Caucasus

 
Armenian arevakhach

In Armenia the swastika is called the "arevakhach" and "kerkhach" (Armenian: կեռխաչ)[97][dubious – discuss] and is the ancient symbol of eternity and eternal light (i.e. God). Swastikas in Armenia were found on petroglyphs from the copper age, predating the Bronze Age. During the Bronze Age it was depicted on cauldrons, belts, medallions and other items.[98] Among the oldest petroglyphs is the seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet: Է ("E" which means "is" or "to be") depicted as a half-swastika.

Swastikas can also be seen on early Medieval churches and fortresses, including the principal tower in Armenia's historical capital city of Ani.[97] The same symbol can be found on Armenian carpets, cross-stones (khachkar) and in medieval manuscripts, as well as on modern monuments as a symbol of eternity.[99]

Old petroglyphs of four-beam and other swastikas were recorded in Dagestan, in particular, among the Avars.[100] According to Vakhushti of Kartli, the tribal banner of the Avar khans depicted a wolf with a standard with a double-spiral swastika.[101]

Petroglyphs with swastikas were depicted on medieval Vainakh tower architecture (see sketches by scholar Bruno Plaetschke from the 1920s).[102] Thus, a rectangular swastika was made in engraved form on the entrance of a residential tower in the settlement Khimoy, Chechnya.[102]

Northern Europe

Germanic Iron Age

Main article: Swastika (Germanic Iron Age)

The swastika shape (also called a fylfot) appears on various Germanic Migration Period and Viking Age artifacts, such as the 3rd-century Værløse Fibula from Zealand, Denmark, the Gothic spearhead from Brest-Litovsk, today in Belarus, the 9th-century Snoldelev Stone from Ramsø, Denmark, and numerous Migration Period bracteates drawn left-facing or right-facing.[103]

The pagan Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.[104][failed verification] The swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in Kent, in a grave of about the 6th century.

Hilda Ellis Davidson theorised[clarification needed] that the swastika symbol was associated with Thor, possibly representing his Mjolnir – symbolic of thunder – and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun cross.[104] 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.[104] Some of the swastikas on the items, on display at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, are depicted with such care and art that, according to Davidson, it must have possessed special significance as a funerary symbol.[104] The runic inscription on the 8th-century Sæbø sword has been taken as evidence of the swastika as a symbol of Thor in Norse paganism.

Celts

The bronze frontispiece of a ritual pre-Christian (c. 350–50 BCE) shield found in the River Thames near Battersea Bridge (hence "Battersea Shield") is embossed with 27 swastikas in bronze and red enamel.[105] An Ogham stone found in Anglish, Co Kerry, Ireland (CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a cross pattée and two swastikas.[106] The Book of Kells (c. 800 CE) contains swastika-shaped ornamentation. At the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire, there is a swastika-shaped pattern engraved in a stone known as the Swastika Stone.[107] A number of swastikas have been found embossed in Galician metal pieces and carved in stones, mostly from the Castro culture period, although there also are contemporary examples (imitating old patterns for decorative purposes).[108][109]

Balto-Slavic

 
Ancient symbol the Hands of God or "Hands of Svarog" (Polish: Ręce Swaroga)[110]

The swastika is an ancient Baltic thunder cross symbol (pērkona krusts; also fire cross, ugunskrusts), used to decorate objects, traditional clothing and in archaeological excavations.[111][112]

According to painter Stanisław Jakubowski, the "little sun" (Polish: słoneczko) is an Early Slavic pagan symbol of the Sun; he claimed it was engraved on wooden monuments built near the final resting places of fallen Slavs to represent eternal life. The symbol was first seen in his collection of Early Slavic symbols and architectural features, which he named Prasłowiańskie motywy architektoniczne (Polish: Early Slavic Architectural Motifs). His work was published in 1923.[113]

The Boreyko coat of arms with red swastika was used by several noble families in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[114]

The Russians, according to Boris Kuftin, unlike of some other Slavic peoples, the swastika was often used as a decorative element and was the basis of the ornament on traditional weaving products.[115] Many samples are described on the instance of a women's folk costume at the Meshchera Lowlands.[115]

In modern Russia, the name kolovrat (Russian: коловрат, literally "spinning wheel"), is popularly associated with the swastika, but there are no ethnographic sources confirming this.[116] According to some authors, Russian names popularly associated with the swastika include veterok ("breeze"),[117] ognevtsi ("little flames"), "geese", "hares" (a towel with a swastika was called a towel with "hares"), or "little horses".[118] At the same time, similar word "koleso" ("wheel") for the name of rosette-shaped amulets, such as a hexafoil-"thunder wheel" (e.g.  ), are presents in authentic folklore, in particular, of the Russian North.[119][120]

Sami

An object very much like a hammer or a double axe is depicted among the magical symbols on the drums of Sami noaidi, used in their religious ceremonies before Christianity was established. The name of the Sami thunder god was Horagalles, thought to derive 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.[104]

Southern Europe

Greco-Roman antiquity

 
Various meander patterns, a.k.a. Greek keys

Ancient Greek architectural, clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs. There are also gold plate fibulae from the 8th century BCE decorated with an engraved swastika.[121] Related symbols in classical Western architecture include the cross, the three-legged triskele or triskelion and the rounded lauburu. The swastika symbol is also known in these contexts by a number of names, especially gammadion,[122] or rather the tetra-gammadion. The name gammadion comes from its being seen as being made up of four Greek gamma (Γ) letters. Ancient Greek architectural designs are replete with the interlinking symbol.

In Greco-Roman art and architecture, and in Romanesque and Gothic art in the West, isolated swastikas are relatively rare, and the swastika is more commonly found as a repeated element in a border or tessellation. The swastika often represented perpetual motion, reflecting the design of a rotating windmill or watermill. A meander of connected swastikas makes up the large band that surrounds the Augustan Ara Pacis.

A design of interlocking swastikas is one of several tessellations on the floor of the cathedral of Amiens, France.[123] A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif,[124] and can be seen in more recent buildings as a neoclassical element. A swastika border is one form of meander, and the individual swastikas in such a border are sometimes called Greek keys. There have also been swastikas found on the floors of Pompeii.[125]

Illyrians

The swastika was widespread among the Illyrians, symbolising the Sun. The Sun cult was the main Illyrian cult; the Sun was represented by a swastika in clockwise motion, and it stood for the movement of the Sun.[126]

Medieval and early modern Europe

Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artefacts from Iron Age Europe.[97][127][128][129][10]

In Christianity, the swastika is used as a hooked version of the Christian Cross, the symbol of Christ's victory over death. Some Christian churches built in the Romanesque and Gothic eras are decorated with swastikas, carrying over earlier Roman designs. Swastikas are prominently displayed in a mosaic in the St. Sophia church of Kyiv, Ukraine dating from the 12th century. They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on a tomb in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan.[130]

A ceiling painted in 1910 in the church of St Laurent in Grenoble has many swastikas. It can be visited today because the church became the archaeological museum of the city. A proposed direct link between it and a swastika floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, which was built on top of a pagan site at Amiens, France in the 13th century, is considered unlikely. The stole worn by a priest in the 1445 painting of the Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden presents the swastika form simply as one way of depicting the cross.

Swastikas also appear in art and architecture during the Renaissance and Baroque era. The fresco The School of Athens shows an ornament made out of swastikas, and the symbol can also be found on the facade of the Santa Maria della Salute, a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice.

In the Polish First Republic the symbol of the swastika was also popular with the nobility. According to chronicles, the Rus' prince Oleg, who in the 9th century attacked Constantinople, nailed his shield (which had a large red swastika painted on it) to the city's gates.[131] Several noble houses, e.g. Boreyko, Borzym, and Radziechowski from Ruthenia, also had swastikas as their coat of arms. The family reached its greatness in the 14th and 15th centuries and its crest can be seen in many heraldry books produced at that time.

The swastika was also a heraldic symbol, for example on the Boreyko coat of arms, used by noblemen in Poland and Ukraine. In the 19th century the swastika was one of the Russian Empire's symbols, and was used on coinage as a backdrop to the Russian eagle.[132][133]

  •  

    Bashkirs symbol of the sun and fertility

  •  

    Mosaic swastika in an excavated Byzantine church in Shavei Tzion, (Israel)

  •  

    A swastika composed of Hebrew letters as a mystical symbol from the Jewish Kabbalistic work "Parashat Eliezer", from the 18th century or earlier

  •  

    Swastikas on the vestments of the effigy of Bishop William Edington (d. 1366) in Winchester Cathedral

  •  

    The Victorian-era reproduction of the Swastika Stone on Ilkley Moor, which sits near the original to aid visitors in interpreting the carving

Non-Eurasian samples

Africa

Swastikas can be seen in various African cultures. In Ethiopia the Swastika is carved in the window of the famous 12th-century Biete Maryam, one of the Rock-Hewn Churches, Lalibela.[3] In Ghana, the swastika is among the adinkra symbols of the Akan peoples. Called nkontim, swastikas could be found on Ashanti gold weights and clothing.[134]

  •  

    Ashanti weight in Africa

  •  

    Nkontim adinkra symbol from Ghana, representing loyalty and readiness to serve

  •  

    Carved fretwork forming a swastika on the Biete Maryam in Ethiopia

Americas

The swastika is a Navajo symbol for good luck, also translated to "whirling log". Though it was also used by some Native American groups, many object to its use today.[135][4][136][137] The symbol was used on state road signs in Arizona.[138]

  •  

    Pima symbol of the four winds

Early 20th century

Main article: Western use of the swastika 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 Schliemann, who discovered the symbol in the site of ancient Troy and associated it with the ancient migrations of Proto-Indo-Europeans, whose proto-language was not coincidentally termed "Proto-Indo-Germanic" by German language historians. He connected it with similar shapes found on ancient pots in Germany, and theorised[clarification needed] that the swastika was a "significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors", linking it to ancient Teutons, Greeks of the time of Homer and Indians of the Vedic era.[139][140] By the early 20th century, it was used worldwide and was regarded as a symbol of good luck and success.

Schliemann's work soon became intertwined with the political völkisch movements, which used the swastika as a symbol for the "Aryan race" – a concept that theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg equated with a Nordic master race originating in northern Europe. Since its adoption by the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler, the swastika has been associated with Nazism, fascism, racism in its white supremacy form, the Axis powers in World War II, and the Holocaust in much of the West. The swastika remains a core symbol of neo-Nazi groups.

The Benedictine choir school at Lambach Abbey, Upper Austria, which Hitler attended for several months as a boy, had a swastika chiseled into the monastery portal and also the wall above the spring grotto in the courtyard by 1868. Their origin was the personal coat of arms of Abbot Theoderich Hagn of the monastery in Lambach, which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field.[141]

Europe

Further information: Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century § Europe

Britain

The British author and poet Rudyard Kipling used the symbol on the cover art of a number of his works, including The Five Nations, 1903, which has it twinned with an elephant. Once Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power, Kipling ordered that the swastika should no longer adorn his books.[citation needed] In 1927, a red swastika defaced by a Union Jack was proposed as a flag for the Union of South Africa.[142]

Denmark

 
Carlsberg's Elephant Tower

The Danish brewery company Carlsberg Group used the swastika as a logo[143] from the 19th century until the middle of the 1930s when it was discontinued because of association with the Nazi Party in neighbouring Germany. In Copenhagen at the entrance gate, and tower, of the company's headquarters, built in 1901, swastikas can still be seen. The tower is supported by four stone elephants, each with a swastika on each side. The tower they support is topped with a spire, in the middle of which is a swastika.[144]

Iceland

The swastika, or the Thor's hammer as the logo was called, was used as the logo for H/f. Eimskipafjelag Íslands[145] from its founding in 1914 until the Second World War when it was discontinued and changed to read only the letters Eimskip.

Ireland

The Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, a district of Dublin, Ireland. In the 1950s, Heinrich Böll came across a van belonging to the company while he was staying in Ireland, leading to some awkward moments before he realised 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.[146][147]

Finland

In Finland, the swastika (vääräpää meaning "crooked-head", and later hakaristi, meaning "hook-cross") was often used in traditional folk-art products, as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood. The swastika was also used by the Finnish Air Force until 1945, and is still used on air force flags.

The tursaansydän, an elaboration on the swastika, is used by scouts in some instances,[148] and by a student organisation.[149] The Finnish village of Tursa uses the tursaansydän as a kind of a certificate of authenticity on products made there, and is the origin of this name of the symbol (meaning "heart of Tursa"),[150] which is also known as the mursunsydän ("walrus-heart"). Traditional textiles are still made in Finland with swastikas as parts of traditional ornaments.

Finnish military
 
The aircraft roundel and insignia of the Finnish Air force from 1934 to 1945
 
The Lotta Svärd emblem designed by Eric Wasström in 1921
 
Order of the Cross of Liberty of Finland

The Finnish Air Force used the swastika as an emblem, introduced in 1918, until January 2017.[151] The type of swastika adopted by the air-force was the symbol of luck for the Swedish count Eric von Rosen, who donated one of its earliest aircraft; he later became a prominent figure in the Swedish Nazi movement.

The swastika was also used by the women's paramilitary organisation Lotta Svärd, which was banned in 1944 in accordance with the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the allied Soviet Union and Britain.

The President of Finland is the grand master of the Order of the White Rose. According to the protocol, the president shall wear the Grand Cross of the White Rose with collar on formal occasions. The original design of the collar, decorated with nine swastikas, dates from 1918 and was designed by the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The Grand Cross with the swastika collar has been awarded 41 times to foreign heads of state. To avoid misunderstandings, the swastika decorations were replaced by fir crosses at the decision of president Urho Kekkonen in 1963 after it became known that the President of France Charles De Gaulle was uncomfortable with the swastika collar.

Also a design by Gallen-Kallela from 1918, the Cross of Liberty has a swastika pattern in its arms. The Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the standard of the President of Finland.[152]

In December 2007, a silver replica of the World War II-period Finnish air defence's relief ring decorated with a swastika became available as a part of a charity campaign.[153]

The original war-time idea was that the public swap their precious metal rings for the state air defence's relief ring, made of iron.

In 2017, the old logo of Finnish Air Force Command with swastika was replaced by a new logo showing golden eagle and a circle of wings. However, the logo of Finland's air force academy still keeps the swastika symbol.[154]

Latvia

 
Latvian Air Force roundel until 1940

Latvia adopted the swastika, for its Air Force in 1918/1919 and continued its use until the Soviet occupation in 1940.[155][156] The cross itself was maroon on a white background, mirroring the colors of the Latvian flag. Earlier versions pointed counter-clockwise, while later versions pointed clock-wise and eliminated the white background.[157][158] Various other Latvian Army units and the Latvian War College[159] (the predecessor of the National Defence Academy) also had adopted the symbol in their battle flags and insignia during the Latvian War of Independence.[160] A stylised fire cross is the base of the Order of Lāčplēsis, the highest military decoration of Latvia for participants of the War of Independence.[161] The Pērkonkrusts, an ultra-nationalist political organisation active in the 1930s, also used the fire cross as one of its symbols.

Lithuania

The swastika symbol (Lithuanian: sūkurėlis) is a traditional Baltic ornament,[111][162] found on relics dating from at least the 13th century.[163] The swastika for Lithuanians represent the history and memory of their Lithuanians ancestors as well as the Baltic people at large.[164] There are monuments in Lithuania such as the Freedom Monument in Rokiškis where the swastika can be found.[164]

Sweden

 
ASEA logo before 1933

The Swedish company ASEA, now a part of ABB, in the late 1800s introduced a company logo featuring a swastika. The logo was replaced in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During the early 1900s, the swastika was used as a symbol of electric power, perhaps because it resembled a waterwheel or turbine. On maps of the period, the sites of hydroelectric power stations were marked with swastikas.

Norway

Starting in 1917, Mikal Sylten's staunchly anti-semitic periodical, Nationalt Tidsskrift took up the swastika as a symbol, three years before Adolf Hitler chose to do so.[165]

The headquarters of the Oslo Municipal Power Station was designed by architects Bjercke and Eliassen in 1928–1931. Swastikas adorn its wrought iron gates. The architects knew the swastika as a symbol of electricity and were probably not yet aware that it had been usurped by the German Nazi party and would soon become the foremost symbol of the German Reich. The fact that these gates survived the cleanup after the German occupation of Norway during WW II is a testimony to the innocence and good faith of the power plant and its architects. The architects Bjercke and Eliassen knew the swastika as a symbol of power plants on maps in Scandinavia, and as the logo of Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget, ASEA.[166]

Eurasia (Russia)

The left-handed swastika was a favorite sign of the last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. She wore a talisman in the form of a swastika, put it everywhere for happiness, including on her suicide letters from Tobolsk,[167] later drew with a pencil on the wall and in the window opening of the room in the Ipatiev House, which served as the place of the last imprisonment of the royal family and on the wallpaper above the bed.[168]

The Russian Provisional Government of 1917 printed a number of new bank notes with right-facing, diagonally rotated swastikas in their centres.[169] The banknote design was initially intended for the Mongolian national bank but was re-purposed for Russian ruble after the February revolution. Swastikas were depicted and on some Soviet credit cards (sovznaks) printed with clichés that were in circulation in 1918–1922.[170]

During the Russian Civil War, the swastika was present in the symbolism of the uniform of some units of the White Army Asiatic Cavalry Division of Baron Ungern in Siberia and Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, which is explained by the significant number of Buddhists within it.[171] The Red Army's ethnic Kalmyk units wore distinct armbands featuring the swastika with "РСФСР" (Roman: "RSFSR") inscriptions on them.[172]

North America

Further information: Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century § North America

The swastika motif is found in some traditional Native American art and iconography. Historically, the design has been found in excavations of Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, and on objects associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.). It is also widely used by a number of southwestern tribes, most notably the Navajo, and plains nations such as the Dakota. Among various tribes, the swastika carries different meanings. To the Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan; to the Navajo it is one symbol for the whirling log (tsin náálwołí), a sacred image representing a legend that is used in healing rituals.[173] A brightly coloured First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.[174]

Before the 1930s, the symbol for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army was a red diamond with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the southwestern United States. It was later replaced with a thunderbird symbol.

The town of Swastika, Ontario, Canada, and the hamlet of Swastika, New York were named after the symbol.

From 1909 to 1916, the K-R-I-T automobile, manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, used a right-facing swastika as their trademark.

Association with Nazism

Use in Nazism (1920–1945)

Further information: Fascist symbolism, Nazi symbolism, Occultism in Nazism, and § Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate
Nazi Party Emblems
 
Party badge
 
Parteiadler ("Party eagle")
 
Golden Party Badge

The swastika was widely used in Europe at the start of the 20th century. It symbolised many things to the Europeans, with the most common symbolism being of good luck and auspiciousness.[20] In the wake of widespread popular usage, in post-World War I Germany, the newly established Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika in 1920.[175][176] The Nazi Party emblem was a black swastika rotated 45 degrees on a white circle on a red background. This insignia was used on the party's flag, badge, and armband. Hitler also designed his personal standard using a black swastika sitting flat on one arm, not rotated.[177]

Before the Nazis, the swastika was already in use as a symbol of German völkisch nationalist movements (Völkische Bewegung).

José Manuel Erbez says:

The first time the swastika was used with an "Aryan" meaning was on 25 December 1907, when the self-named Order of the New Templars, a secret society founded by Lanz von Liebenfels, hoisted at Werfenstein Castle (Austria) a yellow flag with a swastika and four fleurs-de-lys.[178]

However, Liebenfels was drawing on an already-established use of the symbol.[179]

 
The flag of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP)
 
The national flag of Germany (1935–1945), which differs from the NSDAP flag in that the white circle with the swastika is off-center

In his 1925 work Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler writes: "I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black hooked cross 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 hooked cross."

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 colours of the flag of the old German Empire.) He also stated: "As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the hooked cross, 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."[180]

The swastika was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, effecting life" (das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens) and as "race emblem of Germanism" (Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums).[181]

The concept of racial hygiene was an ideology central to Nazism, though it is scientific racism.[182][183] High-ranking Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg noted that the Indo-Aryan peoples were both a model to be imitated and a warning of the dangers of the spiritual and racial "confusion" that, he believed, arose from the proximity of races. The Nazis co-opted the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan master race.

On 14 March 1933, shortly after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the NSDAP flag was hoisted alongside Germany's national colors. As part of the Nuremberg Laws, the NSDAP flag – with the swastika slightly offset from center – was adopted as the sole national flag of Germany on 15 September 1935.[184]

Use by the Allies

 
Swastikas marking downed German aircraft on the fuselage sides of a RAF Spitfire

During World War II it was common to use small swastikas to mark air-to-air victories on the sides of Allied aircraft, and at least one British fighter pilot inscribed a swastika in his logbook for each German plane he shot down.[185]

Post–World War II stigmatisation

Because of its use by Nazi Germany, the swastika since the 1930s has been largely associated with Nazism. In the aftermath of World War II it has been considered a symbol of hate in the West,[186] and of white supremacy in many Western countries.[187]

As a result, all use of it, or its use as a Nazi or hate symbol, is prohibited in some countries, including Germany. In some countries, such as the United States (in the 2003 case Virginia v. Black), the highest courts have ruled that the local governments can prohibit the use of swastika along with other symbols such as cross burning, if the intent of the use is to intimidate others.[21]

Germany

Further information: Strafgesetzbuch section 86a

The German and Austrian postwar criminal code makes the public showing of the swastika, the sig rune, the Celtic cross (specifically the variations used by white power activists), the wolfsangel, the odal rune and the Totenkopf skull illegal, except for scholarly reasons. It is also censored from the reprints of 1930s railway timetables published by the Reichsbahn. The swastikas on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples are exempt, as religious symbols cannot be banned in Germany.[188]

A controversy was stirred by the decision of several police departments to begin inquiries against anti-fascists.[189] In late 2005 police raided the offices of the punk rock label and mail order store "Nix Gut Records" and confiscated merchandise depicting crossed-out swastikas and fists smashing swastikas. In 2006 the Stade police department started an inquiry against anti-fascist youths using a placard depicting a person dumping a swastika into a trashcan. The placard was displayed in opposition to the campaign of right-wing nationalist parties for local elections.[190]

On Friday, 17 March 2006, a member of the Bundestag, Claudia Roth reported herself to the German police for displaying a crossed-out swastika in multiple demonstrations against Neo-Nazis, and subsequently got the Bundestag to suspend her immunity from prosecution. She intended to show the absurdity of charging anti-fascists with using fascist symbols: "We don't need prosecution of non-violent young people engaging against right-wing extremism." On 15 March 2007, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof) held that the crossed-out symbols were "clearly directed against a revival of national-socialist endeavors", thereby settling the dispute for the future.[191][192][193]

On 9 August 2018, Germany lifted the ban on the usage of swastikas and other Nazi symbols in video games. "Through the change in the interpretation of the law, games that critically look at current affairs can for the first time be given a USK age rating," USK managing director Elisabeth Secker told CTV. "This has long been the case for films and with regards to the freedom of the arts, this is now rightly also the case with computer and videogames."[194][195]

Legislation in other European countries

  • Until 2013 in Hungary, it was a criminal misdemeanour to publicly display "totalitarian symbols", including the swastika, the SS insignia, and the Arrow Cross, punishable by custodial arrest.[196][197] Display for academic, educational, artistic or journalistic reasons was allowed at the time. The communist symbols of hammer and sickle and the red star were also regarded as totalitarian symbols and had the same restriction by Hungarian criminal law until 2013.[196]
  • In Latvia, public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is prohibited in public events since 2013.[198][199] However, in a court case from 2007 a regional court in Riga held that the swastika can be used as an ethnographic symbol, in which case the ban does not apply.[200]
  • In Lithuania, public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is an administrative offence, punishable by a fine from 150 to 300 euros. According to judicial practice, display of a non-Nazi swastika is legal.[201]
  • In Poland, public display of Nazi symbols, including the Nazi swastika, is a criminal offence punishable by up to eight years of imprisonment. The use of the swastika as a religious symbol is legal.[202]

Attempted ban in the European Union

The European Union's Executive Commission proposed a European Union-wide anti-racism law in 2001, but European Union states failed to agree on the balance between prohibiting racism and freedom of expression.[203] 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 criminalise 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.[204][205] The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on 29 January 2007.[203]

Latin America

  • The manufacture, distribution or broadcasting of the swastika, with the intent to propagate Nazism, is a crime in Brazil as dictated by article 20, paragraph 1, of federal statute 7.716, passed in 1989. The penalty is a two to five years prison term and a fine.[206]
  • The former flag of the Guna Yala autonomous territory of Panama was based on a swastika design. In 1942 a ring was added to the centre of the flag to differentiate it from the symbol of the Nazi Party (this version subsequently fell into disuse).[207]

United States

The public display of Nazi-era German flags (or any other flags) is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech.[208] The Nazi Reichskriegsflagge has also been seen on display at white supremacist events within United States borders, side by side with the Confederate battle flag.[209]

In 2010 the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) downgraded the swastika from its status as a Jewish hate symbol, saying "We know that the swastika has, for some, lost its meaning as the primary symbol of Nazism and instead become a more generalised symbol of hate."[210] The ADL notes on their website that the symbol is often used as "shock graffiti" by juveniles, rather than by individuals who hold white supremacist beliefs, but it is still a predominant symbol amongst American white supremacists (particularly as a tattoo design) and used with anti-Semitic intention.[211]

Australia

In 2022, Victoria was the first Australian state to ban the display of the Nazi's swastika. People who intentionally break this law will face a one-year jail sentence or A$22,000 (£12,300; $15,000) fine.[212]

Media

In 2010, Microsoft officially spoke out against use of the swastika by players of the first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops. In Black Ops, players are allowed to customise their name tags to represent, essentially, whatever they want. The swastika can be created and used, but Stephen Toulouse, director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement, said players with the symbol on their name tag will be banned (if someone reports it as inappropriate) from Xbox Live.[213]

In the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular in Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida, the swastikas on German trucks, aircraft and actor uniforms in the reenactment of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark were removed in 2004. The swastika has been replaced by a stylised Greek cross.[214]

Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate

Beginning in the early 2000s, partially as a reaction to the publication of a book titled The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? by Steven Heller,[26] there has been a movement led in part by Hindu, Buddhist, indigenous peoples, Jain historians, anthropologists, linguists, and other scholars to "reclaim" what was seen as 'their' swastika symbol "...until Hitler stole it."[215] These groups argue that the swastika is distinct from the Nazi symbol. A key part of this argument rests on the fact that Adolf Hitler referred to the symbol as a hooked cross (hakenkreuz), which is the literal German language term for the symbol.

The main barrier to the effort to "reclaim", "restore", or "reassess" the swastika comes from the decades of extremely negative association in the Western world following the Nazi Party's adoption of it in the 1930s. As well, white supremacist groups still cling to the symbol as an icon of power and identity.[216] In defense of the swastika, Nama Winston writing for the Huffington Post has written that the swastika is "...less racist than racists think" and was "traditionally a symbol of peace and good fortune."[217]

Many media organizations in the West also continue to describe neo-Nazi usage of the symbol as a swastika, or sometimes with the "Nazi" adjective written as "Nazi Swastika"[218][219] groups that oppose this media terminology do not wish to censor such usage, but rather to shift coverage of antisemitic and hateful events to describe the symbol in this context as a "hakenkreuz" or "hooked cross".[220]

Contemporary use

Asia

Central Asia

In 2005, authorities in Tajikistan called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national symbol. President Emomali Rahmonov declared the swastika an Aryan symbol, and 2006 "the year of Aryan culture", which would be a time to "study and popularise Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilisation, raise a new generation (of Tajiks) with the spirit of national self-determination, and develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures".[221]

East and Southeast Asia

In East Asia, the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities. It is commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artifacts, texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups. It also appears as a design or motif (singularly or woven into a pattern) on textiles, architecture and various decorative objects as a symbol of luck and good fortune. The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition, but in the left-facing orientation.[222][223]

Many Chinese religions make use of the swastika symbol, including Guiyidao and Shanrendao. The Red Swastika Society, formed in China in 1922 as the philanthropic branch of Guiyidao, became the largest supplier of emergency relief in China during World War II, in the same manner as the Red Cross in the rest of the world. The Red Swastika Society abandoned mainland China in 1954, settling first in Hong Kong then in Taiwan. They continue to use the red swastika as their symbol.[224]

In Japan, the swastika is also used as a map symbol and is designated by the Survey Act and related Japanese governmental rules to denote a Buddhist temple.[225] Japan has considered changing this symbols due to occasional controversy and misunderstanding by foreigners.[226] The symbol is sometimes censored in international versions of Japanese works, such as anime.[227] Censorship of this symbol in Japan and in Japanese media abroad has been subject to occasional controversy related to freedom-of-speech, with critics of the censorship arguing it does not respect history nor freedom of speech.[226][227]

The city of Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture designates this symbol as its official flag, which stemmed from its use in the emblem of the Tsugaru clan, the lords of Hirosaki Domain during the Edo period.[citation needed]

Among the predominantly Hindu population of Bali, in Indonesia, the swastika is common in temples, homes and public spaces. Similarly, the swastika is a common icon associated with Buddha's footprints in Theravada Buddhist communities of Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.[223]

Indian subcontinent

In Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the swastika is common. Temples, businesses and other organisations, such as the Buddhist libraries, Ahmedabad Stock Exchange and the Nepal Chamber of Commerce,[228] use the swastika in reliefs or logos.[223] Swastikas are ubiquitous in Indian and Nepalese communities, located on shops, buildings, transport vehicles, and clothing. The swastika remains prominent in Hindu ceremonies such as weddings. The left facing sauwastika symbol is found in tantric rituals.[1]

Musaeus College in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a Buddhist girls' school, has a left facing swastika in their school logo.

In India, Swastik and Swastika, with their spelling variants, are first names for males and females respectively, for instance with Swastika Mukherjee. The Emblem of Bihar contains two swastikas.

In Bhutan, the swastika motif is found in architecture, fabrics and religious ceremonies.

Europe and North America

Use by neo-Nazis

As with many neo-Nazi groups across the world, the American Nazi Party used the swastika as part of its flag before its first dissolution in 1967. The symbol was chosen by the organisation's founder, George Lincoln Rockwell.[229] It was "re-used" by successor organisations in 1983, without the publicity Rockwell's organisation enjoyed.

The swastika, in various iconographic forms, is one of the hate symbols identified in use as graffiti in US schools, and is described as such in a 1999 US Department of Education document, "Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators", edited by Jim Carnes, which provides advice to educators on how to support students targeted by such hate symbols and address hate graffiti. Examples given show that it is often used alongside other white supremacist symbols, such as those of the Ku Klux Klan, and note a "three-bladed" variation used by skinheads, white supremacists, and "some South African extremist groups".[230]

The neo-Nazi Russian National Unity group's branch in Estonia is officially registered under the name "Kolovrat" and published an extremist newspaper in 2001 under the same name.[231] A criminal investigation found the paper included an array of racial epithets. One Narva resident was sentenced to one year in jail for distribution of Kolovrat.[232] The Kolovrat has since been used by the Rusich Battalion, a Russian militant group known for its operation during the war in Donbas.[233][234]

Western misinterpretation of Asian use

Since the end of the 20th century, and through the early 21st century, confusion and controversy has occurred when personal-use goods bearing the traditional Jain, Buddhist, or Hindu symbols have been exported to the West, notably to North America and Europe, and have been interpreted by purchasers as bearing a Nazi symbol. This has resulted in several such products having been boycotted or pulled from shelves.

When a ten-year-old boy in Lynbrook, New York, bought a set of Pokémon cards imported from Japan in 1999, two of the cards contained the left-facing Buddhist swastika. The boy's parents misinterpreted the symbol as the right-facing Nazi swastika and filed a complaint to the manufacturer. Nintendo of America announced that the cards would be discontinued, explaining that what was acceptable in one culture was not necessarily so in another; their action was welcomed by the Anti-Defamation League who recognised that there was no intention to offend, but said that international commerce meant that, "Isolating [the Swastika] in Asia would just create more problems."[26]

In 2002, Christmas crackers containing plastic toy red pandas sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after complaints from customers in Canada. The manufacturer, based in China, said the symbol was presented in a traditional sense and not as a reference to the Nazis, and apologised to the customers for the cross-cultural mixup.[235]

In 2020, the retailer Shein pulled a necklace featuring a left-facing swastika pendant from its website after receiving backlash on social media. The retailer apologized for the lack of sensitivity but noted that the swastika was a Buddhist symbol.[236]

New religious movements

Besides its use as a religious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, which can be traced back to pre-modern traditions, the swastika is also used by adherents of a large number of new religious movements which were established in the modern period.

Theosophy

In the 1880s the U.S.–origined Theosophical Society adopted a swastika as part of its seal, along with an Om, a hexagram or star of David, an Ankh and an Ouroboros. Unlike the much more recent Raëlian movement, the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy, and the seal is still used. The current seal also includes the text "There is no religion higher than truth."[237]

Raëlism

 
 
The Raëlian symbol with the swastika (left) and the alternative spiral version (right)

The Raëlian Movement, whose adherents believe extraterrestrials created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced star of David and a swastika. The Raelians say the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in time – no beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic.[238] In 1991, the symbol was changed in order to remove the swastika, out of respect to the victims of the Holocaust, but as of 2007 it has been restored to its original form.[239]

Ananda Marga

The Tantra-based new religious movement Ananda Marga (Devanagari: आनन्द मार्ग, meaning Path of Bliss) uses a motif similar to the Raëlians, but in their case the apparent star of David is defined as intersecting triangles with no specific reference to Jewish culture.

Falun Gong

The Falun Gong qigong movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with yin-and-yang symbols.[240]

Heathenry

The swastika is a holy symbol in neopagan Germanic Heathenry, along with the hammer of Thor and runes. This tradition – which is found in Scandinavia, Germany, and elsewhere – considers the swastika to be derived from a Norse symbol for the sun. Their use of the symbol has led people to accuse them of being a neo-Nazi group.[241][242][243]

Baltic neopaganism

A "fire cross" ("ugunskrusts") is used by the Baltic neopaganism movements Dievturība in Latvia and Romuva in Lithuania.[244]

Slavic Native Faith

A variant of the swastika, the non-traditional eight-armed kolovrat ("spinning wheel"), is the most commonly used religious symbol within neopagan Slavic Native Faith (a.k.a. Rodnovery).[245][246]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In a broader sense, swastika is a rosette with any number of rays bent in one direction,[9] such as triskelion or arevakhach.
  2. ^ Except for religious use

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Swastika". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Campion, Mukti Jain (23 October 2014). "How the world loved the swastika – until Hitler stole it". BBC News Magazine. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
  3. ^ a b Buxton, David Roden (1947). "The Christian Antiquities of Northern Ethiopia". Archaeologia. Society of Antiquaries of London. 92: 11 & 23. doi:10.1017/S0261340900009863.
  4. ^ a b Olson, Jim. "The Swastika symbol in Native American Art." Whispering Wind 48, no. 3 (2020): 23-25.
  5. ^ a b Bruce M. Sullivan (2001). The A to Z of Hinduism. Scarecrow Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-4616-7189-3.
  6. ^ a b c d Adrian Snodgrass (1992). The Symbolism of the Stupa. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-81-208-0781-5.
  7. ^ a b Cort, John E. (2001). Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0195132342.
  8. ^ a b c d Beer, Robert (2003). The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Serindia Publications, Inc. ISBN 978-1932476033 – via Google Books.[page needed]
  9. ^ "Свастика" [Swastika]. Большая российская энциклопедия/Great Russian Encyclopedia Online (in Russian). 2017.
  10. ^ a b c "The Migration of Symbols Index". sacred-texts.com.
  11. ^ Press, Cambridge University (2008). Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-3125179882 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ "'Swastika' Etymology". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  13. ^ a b Art Silverblatt; Nikolai Zlobin (2015). International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach. Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-317-46760-1. Buddha's footprints were said to be swastikas.
  14. ^ Pant, Mohan; Funo, Shūji (2007). Stupa and Swastika: Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. National University of Singapore Press. p. 231 with note 5. ISBN 978-9971-69-372-5.
  15. ^ Greg, Robert Philips (1884). On the Meaning and Origin of the Fylfot and Swastika. Nichols and Sons. pp. 6, 29.
  16. ^ "Faience button seal". Faience button seal (H99-3814/8756-01) with swastika motif found on the floor of Room 202 (Trench 43).
  17. ^ "B'nai B'rith., 1940, The National Jewish Monthly, Volumes 55–56, p. 181". from the original on 28 July 2022. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  18. ^ "Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera, Center for Romanian Studies, 1998, Nicolae Iorga: A Biography, p. 102". from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  19. ^ "Ion C. Butnaru, Renee Spodheim, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992, The Silent Holocaust: Romania and Its Jews, p. 28". from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  20. ^ a b "History of the Swastika". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2009.
  21. ^ a b Wiener, Richard L.; Richter, Erin (2008). "Symbolic hate: Intention to intimidate, political ideology, and group association". Law and Human Behavior. American Psychological Association. 32 (6): 463–476. doi:10.1007/s10979-007-9119-3. PMID 18030607. S2CID 25546323.
  22. ^ Stollznow, Karen (2020). On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present. Cambridge University Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-108-49627-8.
  23. ^ Langman, Lauren; Lundskow, George (2016). God, Guns, Gold and Glory: American Character and its Discontents. Brill. p. 89. ISBN 978-90-04-32863-1.
  24. ^ Lander, Janis (2013). Spiritual Art and Art Education. Routledge. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-134-66789-5.
  25. ^ Wagoner, Brady (2009). Symbolic Transformation: The Mind in Movement Through Culture and Society. Routledge. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-135-15090-7.
  26. ^ a b c d Heller, Steven (2008). The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?. New York: Allworth Press. ISBN 978-1-58115-507-5.
  27. ^ Zimmer, Heinrich (2017). Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Princeton University Press.
  28. ^ Allchin, F. R.; Erdosy, George (1995). The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. Cambridge University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-521-37695-2.
  29. ^ First recorded 1871 (OED); alternative historical English spellings include suastika, swastica, and svastica; see, for example: Notes and Queries. Oxford University Press. 31 March 1883. p. 259.
  30. ^ Lorraine Boissoneault (6 April 2017), The Man Who Brought the Swastika to Germany, and How the Nazis Stole It 1 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Smithsonian Magazine
  31. ^ Harper, Douglas (2016). "Swastika". Etymology Dictionary.
  32. ^ Mees (2008), pp. 57–58.
  33. ^ a b Heinrich Schliemann (1880). Ilios. J. Murray. pp. 347–348.
  34. ^ a b c Monier Monier-Williams (1899). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, s.v. svastika 4 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine (p. 1283).
  35. ^ A Vedic Concordance, Maurice Bloomfield, Harvard University Press, pp. 1052–1054
  36. ^ "Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/494 – Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  37. ^ Staal, Frits (April 1965). "Euclid and Pāṇini". Philosophy East and West. 15 (2): 99–116. doi:10.2307/1397332. JSTOR 1397332.
  38. ^ Cardona, George (1998). Pāṇini: A Survey of Research. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 268. ISBN 978-81-208-1494-3 – via Google Books.
  39. ^ "Panini (Indian Grammarian)". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2013.
  40. ^ Scharfe, Hartmut (1977). Grammatical Literature. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 88–89. ISBN 978-3-447-01706-0 – via Google Books.
  41. ^ Graves, Charles (April 1879). "On the Croix Gammée, or Swastika". The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Royal Irish Academy. 27: 41–46. Read by Graves to the Royal Irish Academy on 13 May 1878.
  42. ^ Thomas, Edward (1880). "The Indian Swastika and Its Western Counterparts". Numismatic Chronicle. Royal Numismatic Society. 20: 18–48.
  43. ^ Sewell, Robert (1881). "Notes on the Swastika". The Indian Antiquary. 9: 65–73.
  44. ^ The Migration of Symbols 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, by Eugène Goblet d'Alviella, (1894), p. 40 at sacred-texts.com
  45. ^ "tetraskelion". Merriam-Webster Dictionary (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  46. ^ . Indian Country Today Media Network. 7 August 2013. Archived from the original on 11 August 2013.
  47. ^ Powers, John (2007). Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala Press. p. 509. ISBN 978-1-55939-835-0 – via Google Books.
  48. ^ Chessa, Luciano (2012). Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult. University of California Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-520-95156-3 – via Google Books.
  49. ^ "Swastika Flag Specifications and Construction Sheet (Germany) 8 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine". Flags of the World.
  50. ^ "CJK Unified Ideographs" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 16 September 2003. (4.83 MB), The Unicode Standard, Version 4.1. Unicode, Inc. 2005.
  51. ^ Big5: C9_C3, according to Wenlin
  52. ^ Big5+: 85_80, according to Wenlin
  53. ^ "Right-Facing Svasti Sign" 22 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine (click "next" three times)
  54. ^ Paliga S., The tablets of Tǎrtǎria Dialogues d'histoire ancienne, vol. 19, n°1, 1993. pp. 9–43; (Fig. 5 on p. 28) 6 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  55. ^ Freed, S. A. and R. S., "Origin of the Swastika", Natural History, January 1980, 68–75.
  56. ^ Guénon, René; Fohr, Samuel D. (2004). Symbols of Sacred Science. Sophia Perennis. pp. 64–67, 113–117. ISBN 978-0900588785.
  57. ^ Guénon, René; Fohr, Samuel D. (2004). Symbols of Sacred Science. Sophia Perennis. pp. 113–117, 130. ISBN 978-0900588785.
  58. ^ Assasi, Reza (2013). "Swastika: The Forgotten Constellation Representing the Chariot of Mithras". Anthropological Notebooks (Supplement: Šprajc, Ivan; Pehani, Peter, eds. Ancient Cosmologies and Modern Prophets: Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture). Ljubljana: Slovene Anthropological Society. XIX (2). ISSN 1408-032X.
  59. ^ a b Gennady Zdanovich. "О мировоззрении древних жителей «Страны Городов»" 25 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Русский след, 26 June 2017.
  60. ^ Guénon, René; Fohr, Samuel D. (2004). Symbols of Sacred Science. Sophia Perennis. p. 117. ISBN 978-0900588785.
  61. ^ Sagan, Carl; Druyan, Ann (1985). Comet (1st ed.). New York: Random House. pp. 181–187. ISBN 0-394-54908-2. OCLC 12080683.
  62. ^ a b Kobres, Bob. . Archived from the original on 8 September 2009.
  63. ^ Hewitt, J. F. (1907). Primitive Traditional History: The Primitive History and Chronology of India, South-eastern and South-western Asia, Egypt, and Europe, and the Colonies Thence Sent Forth. Vol. 1. Oxford: J. Parker and Company. p. 145.
  64. ^ Good Housekeeping. Vol. 47. C. W. Bryan & Company. 1908.
  65. ^ Frank Hamilton Cushing: "Observations Relative to the Origin of the Fylfot or Swastika", American Anthropologist vol 9, no. 2, June 1907 p. 335 20 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine at JSTOR
  66. ^ Campbell, Joseph (2002). The Flight of the Wild Gander. p. 117.
  67. ^ Campion, Mukti Jain (23 October 2014). "How the world loved the swastika – until Hitler stole it". BBC News. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  68. ^ Persian Sea magazine (2014). "The global role of the swastika in Iranian treasures, idols and carpets" 6 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Iranian Studies. Accessed 19 April 2021. In Persian.
  69. ^ "کتیبه های خوسف ولاخ مزار بیرجند، جک گویی پارتها (Parthians Joking) یا کتیبه های درست دینان سلطنت قباد؟". Civilica (in Persian). 25 September 1395. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
  70. ^ Dimitrova, Stefania (30 January 1996). "Eight Thousand Years Ago Proto-Thracians Depicted the Evolution of the Divine – English". Courrier of UNESCO – via www.academia.edu.
  71. ^ a b Kathleen M. Nadeau (2010). Lee, Jonathan H. X. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife. ABL-CLIO. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-313-35066-5. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  72. ^ Staff (ndg) "Researchers find the Swastika predates the Indus Valley Civilization" 16 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine Ancient Code; citing :lead project investigator" Joy Sen from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
  73. ^ Dunham, Dows "A Collection of 'Pot-Marks' from Kush and Nubia", Kush, 13, 131–147, 1965
  74. ^ (in Chinese) Bao Jing . 6 January 2004, news.xinhuanet.com
  75. ^ "Jar with swastika design Majiayao culture, Machang type (Gansu or Qinghai province)" 9 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Daghlian Collection of Chinese Art
  76. ^ Stipčević, Aleksandar (1977). The Illyrians: history and culture. Noyes Press. ISBN 978-0815550525. Retrieved 14 February 2017 – via Google Books.
  77. ^ "Textile fragment". V&A Museum. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  78. ^ a term coined by Anna Roes, "Tierwirbel", IPEK, 1936–1937
  79. ^ Marija Gimbutas. . Vaidilute.com. Archived from the original on 10 January 2012.
  80. ^ Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (1959), p. 267.
  81. ^ Tokhatyan, K.S. "Rock Carvings of Armenia, Fundamental Armenology, v. 2, 2015, pp. 1-22". Institute of History of NAS RA.
  82. ^ Freed, Stanley A. Research Pitfalls as a Result of the Restoration of Museum Specimens, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 376, The Research Potential of Anthropological Museum Collections pp. 229–245, December 1981.
  83. ^ Dutta, Rita (1 December 2010). "Swastika Symbol on Bharhut Stone Railing: A Case Study". Ancient Asia. 2: 147–154. doi:10.5334/aa.10211. ISSN 2042-5937.
  84. ^ Mohan Pant, Shūji Funo (2007). Stupa and Swastika: Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. NUS Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-9971693725.
  85. ^ "Dictionary – Definition of swastika". Archived from the original on 19 April 2013.
  86. ^ Druid, Morning Star Athbhreith Athbheochan Kwisatz Haderach. . Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  87. ^ a b Janis Lander (2013). Spiritual Art and Art Education. Routledge. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-1-134-66789-5.
  88. ^ "Significance of Swastika in Diwali celebrations". indiatribune.com. 27 October 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  89. ^ Norman C. McClelland (2010). Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. pp. 263–264. ISBN 978-0-7864-5675-8.
  90. ^ Chris Buckley (2005). Tibetan Furniture. Sambhala. pp. 5, 59, 68–70. ISBN 978-1-891640-20-9.
  91. ^ a b c "Symbols – USC Pacific Asia Museum". pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  92. ^ "Chinese Symbols – USC Pacific Asia Museum". pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  93. ^ a b c d e Dusenberry, Mary M. (2004). Flowers, dragons and pine trees : Asian textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art. Carol Bier, Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art (1st ed.). New York: Hudson Hills Press. ISBN 1-55595-238-0. OCLC 55016186.
  94. ^ Kangxi Emperor (1716). Kangxi Dictionary (in Traditional Chinese). Qing Empire. p. 156.
  95. ^ (Japanese) Hitoshi Takazawa, Encyclopedia of Kamon, Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2008. ISBN 978-4-490-10738-8.
  96. ^ "Sayagata　紗綾形". Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System 4 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine.
  97. ^ a b c Concise Armenian Encyclopedia, Yerevan, v. II, p. 663
  98. ^ T. Wilson The swastika, the earlist known symbol and its migrations, pp. 807, 951
  99. ^ Holding, Nicholas; Holding, Deirdre (2011). Armenia. p. 148. ISBN 978-1841623450.
  100. ^ a b Debirov, Paruk M. (1966). Резьба по камню в Дагестане [Stone carving in Dagestan] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka.
  101. ^ Vakhushti of Kartli. Description of the Kingdom of Georgia.
  102. ^ a b Plaetschke, Bruno (1929). Die Tschetschenen: Forschungen zur Völkerkunde des nordöstlichen Kaukasus auf Grund von Reisen in den Jahren 1918–20 und 1927/28 [The Chechens]. Veröffentlichungen des Geographischen Instituts der Universität Königsberg Pr., 11 (in German). Hamburg: Friedrichsen, de Gruyter & Co m. b. H.
  103. ^ Margrethe, Queen, Poul Kjrum, Rikke Agnete Olsen (1990). Oldtidens Ansigt: Faces of the Past, p. 148. ISBN 978-87-7468-274-5
  104. ^ a b c d e H.R. Ellis Davidson (1965). Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, p. 83. ISBN 978-0-14-013627-2
  105. ^ . British Museum. Archived from the original on 24 March 2007.
  106. ^ "CISP entry". Ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  107. ^ Martin J Powell. "Megalithic Sites in England – Photo Archive".
  108. ^ Domínguez Fontela, J. (1938): Cerámica de Santa Tecla. Un hallazgo importantísimo 23 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine in Faro de Vigo.
  109. ^ Romero, Bieito (2009): Xeometrías Máxicas de Galicia. Ir Indo, Vigo.
  110. ^ Grzegorzewic, Ziemisław (2016). O Bogach i ludziach. Praktyka i teoria Rodzimowierstwa Słowiańskiego [About the Gods and people. Practice and theory of Slavic Heathenism] (in Polish). Olsztyn: Stowarzyszenie "Kołomir". p. 57. ISBN 978-83-940180-8-5.
  111. ^ a b Guénon, René (2001). The Symbolism of the Cross. Sophia Perennis. p. 62. ISBN 978-0900588655.
  112. ^ "Latvia and the Swastika". latvians.com. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  113. ^ "Prasłowiańskie motywy architektoniczne". 1923. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  114. ^ Gajl, Tadeusz (2007). Polish Armorial Middle Ages to 20th Century. Gdańsk: L&L. ISBN 978-83-60597-10-1 – via Gajl.wielcy.pl.
  115. ^ a b Kuftin, Boris A. (1926). Материальная культура Русской Мещеры. Ч. 1: Женская одежда: рубаха, понева, сарафан [Material culture of Russian Meshchera. Part 1: Women's clothing: shirt, poniova, sarafan]. Proceedings of the State Museum of the Central Industrial Region, 3 (in Russian). Moscow. pp. 62–64. OCLC 490308640.
  116. ^ Trubachyov, Oleg, ed. (1983). "Kolovortъ; кolovьrtъ" (PDF). Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages (in Russian). Vol. 10. Moscow: Nauka. pp. 149, 150. (PDF) from the original on 24 February 2014.
  117. ^ Багдасаров, Роман. . Цена Победы. Echo of Moscow. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2010. A 2008 interview with historian Roman Bagdasarov. Bagdasarov states that "for some reason, Russian people think that 'kolovrat' is the ancient name of the swastika. But this is absolutely not the case. [...] According to ethnographic records, when I went on expeditions, and so on, the swastika, for example, was called 'veterok' ['breeze']."
  118. ^ Багдасаров Р. В. (2002) [2001]. "Русские имена свастики". Свастика: священный символ. Этнорелигиоведческие очерки (in Russian) (2nd ed.). Moscow: Белые Альвы. ISBN 978-5-7619-0164-3.
  119. ^ Ivanits, Linda J. (1989). Russian Folk Belief. M. E. Sharpe. pp. 14, 17. ISBN 9780765630889.
  120. ^ Garshol, Lars Marius (2021). "Olav's Rose, Perun's Mark, Taranis's Wheel". Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture. 7 (4): 121–151.
  121. ^ Biers, W.R. 1996. The Archaeology of Greece, p. 130. Cornell University Press, Ithaca/London.
  122. ^ "Perseus:image:1990.26.0822". Perseus.tufts.edu. 26 February 1990. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  123. ^ Robert Ferré. "Amiens Cathedral 7 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine". Labyrinth Enterprises. Constructed from 1220 to 1402, Amiens Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in France, a popular tourist attraction and since 1981 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During World War I, Amiens was targeted by German forces but remained in Allied territory following the Battle of Amiens.
  124. ^ Gary Malkin. "Tockington Park Roman Villa 21 May 2004 at the Wayback Machine". The Area of Bristol in Roman Times. 9 December 2002.
  125. ^ Lara Nagy, Jane Vadnal, "Glossary Medieval Art and Architecture", "Greek key or meander" 20 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine, University of Pittsburgh 1997–1998.
  126. ^ Stipčević, Aleksandar (1977). The Illyrians: history and culture. Noyes Press. pp. 182, 186. ISBN 978-0815550525.
  127. ^ Jacob G. Ghazarian (2006), The Mediterranean legacy in early Celtic Christianity: a journey from Armenia to Ireland 5 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Bennett & Bloom, pp. 263, p. 171 "... Quite a different version of the Celtic triskelion, and perhaps the most common pre-Christian symbolism found throughout Armenian cultural tradition, is the round clockwise (occasionally counter-clockwise) whirling sun-like spiral fixed at a centre – the Armenian symbol of eternity."
  128. ^ K. B. Mehr, M. Markow, Mormon Missionaries enter Eastern Europe, Brigham Young University Press, 2002, pp. 399, p. 252 "... She viewed a tall building with spires and circular windows along the top of the walls. It was engraved with sun stones, a typical symbol of eternity in ancient Armenian architecture."
  129. ^ Stipčević, Aleksandar (1977). The Illyrians: history and culture. Noyes Press. ISBN 978-0815550525.
  130. ^ Carus, Paul (1907). The Open Court. Open Court Publishing Company.
  131. ^ (in Russian). Distedu.ru. Archived from the original on 31 August 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  132. ^ Vladimir Nikolaevich. (in Russian). Klk.pp.ru. Archived from the original on 22 August 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  133. ^ Vladimir Plakhotnyuk. (in Russian). Ruskolan.xpomo.com. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  134. ^ Claire Polakoff. Into Indigo: African Textiles and Dyeing Techniques. 1980
  135. ^ "Salt Lake City Tribune". from the original on 24 March 2022. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  136. ^ Brown, Jerome F. "ANTI-SEMITISM ON CAMPUS: THE SWASTIKA OF NMSU." Shofar (1986): 22-32.
  137. ^ Heller, Steven. The swastika: symbol beyond redemption? Simon and Schuster, 2010.
  138. ^ Warnick, Ron (26 October 2006). "Swastikas on old Arizona road maps?". Route 66 News. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  139. ^ Schliemann, H, Troy and its remains, London: Murray, 1875, pp. 102, 119–120.
  140. ^ Boxer, Sarah (29 June 2000). "One of the World's Great Symbols Strives for a Comeback". Think Tank. The New York Times. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
  141. ^ Holocaust Chronology Archived 1 August 2012 at archive.today
  142. ^ Crampton, William (1990). The World of Flags. Studio Additions. pp. 154–155. ISBN 1851704264.
  143. ^ "Flickr Album; "Probably the Best Photo's of Swastikas in the World"". Fiveprime.org. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  144. ^ . Archived from the original on 4 August 2020.
  145. ^ . Eimskip. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  146. ^ . The Irish Times. 3 March 2007. Archived from the original on 20 May 2011. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  147. ^ "Swastika Laundry (1912–1987)". Come here to me!. Comeheretome.wordpress.com. 26 April 2010. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  148. ^ "Partiolippukunta Pitkäjärven Vaeltajat ry". Pitva.Partio.net. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  149. ^ Kainuun Kerho (18 September 2009). . PPO.Osakunta.fi. Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  150. ^ . Tursa.fi (in Finnish). 2007. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  151. ^ Allen, Claudia (1 July 2020). "Finland's air force quietly drops swastika symbol". BBC News. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  152. ^ Flag Archived 20 July 2011 at archive.today The President of the Republic Of Finland
  153. ^ . Rautasormus.fi. Archived from the original on 21 December 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  154. ^ "Finland's air force quietly drops swastika symbol". BBC News. 1 July 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  155. ^ "Latvia – Airforce Flag and Aircraft Marking". fotw.info. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  156. ^ Lumans, Valdis O. (2006). Latvia in World War II. Fordham Univ Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0823226276.
  157. ^ Latvian Air Force 1918–1940 17 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  158. ^ Spārnota Latvija 4 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  159. ^ "Nozīme, Apvienotā Kara skola, 1938. gada izlaidums, Nr. 937, sudrabs, Latvija, 20.gs. 20-30ie gadi, 44.3 x 34.2 mm, 15.60 g, darbnīca V. F. Millers". Vitber (in Latvian). Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  160. ^ "Latvijas armijas, Nacionālo Bruņoto Spēku un citu iestāžu karogi". latvianmilitaryhistory (in Latvian). 1 October 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  161. ^ "Exhibition "The Lāčplēsis Military Order" ← National History Museum of Latvia". lnvm.lv. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  162. ^ "Swastika – historical heritage of Lithuania". European Foundation of Human Rights. 3 February 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  163. ^ "Svastika Mūsų protėvių lietuvių simbolis | Sarmatai". www.sarmatas.lt (in Lithuanian). 7 February 2010. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  164. ^ a b "Svastika – Mūsų protėvių – lietuvių simbolis [Swastika Is the Symbol of Our Ancestors Lithuanians] (in Lithuanian)". sarmatas.lt. 7 February 2010.
  165. ^ Sørensen, Øystein (1989). Fra Hitler til Quisling. Oslo: J.W. Cappelens Forlag. pp. 93–94. ISBN 82-02-11992-8.
  166. ^ Knut Are Tvedt (ed.) (2010). Oslo Byleksikon. Kunnskapsforlaget. Entry: Sommerrogata, p. 527.
  167. ^ Rollin, Henri (1939). L'Apocalypse de notre temps (in French). Paris: Gallimard. pp. 61–62.
  168. ^ Gilliard, Pierre (1923). Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. Online open source – via Alexanderpalace.org.
  169. ^ "Русские бумажные деньги, цену денежных знаков России, местных и частных денежных знаков, боны и валюты" [Russian paper money, price list of Russia banknotes, currency, local and private banknotes]. atsnotes.com (in Russian).
  170. ^ Nikolaiev, R. "Советские «кредитки» со свастикой?" [Soviet "credit cards" with a swastika?]. bonistikaweb.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  171. ^ Tsvetkov, Vasily (2015). "Р. Ф. Унгерн и попытки организации центра антибольшевистского сопротивления в Монголии (1918–1921 годы). 1-я часть" [R. F. Ungern and attempts to organize a center of anti-Bolshevik resistance in Mongolia (1918–1921). Part 1]. Новый исторический вестник [New Historical Bulletin] (in Russian). 45 (3): 145–172.
  172. ^ "Приказ войскам Юго-Восточного фронта от 03.11.1919 № 213" [Order to the troops of the South-Eastern Front dated 11/03/1919 No. 213]. ru.wikisource.org (in Russian).
  173. ^ Dottie Indyke. "The History of an Ancient Human Symbol 5 December 2004 at the Wayback Machine". 4 April 2005. originally from The Wingspread Collector's Guide to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque, Volume 15.
  174. ^ Photo and text, "Why is there a Swastika on the saddle in the First Nations Gallery?" 18 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine, Royal Saskatchewan Museum
  175. ^ "History of the Swastika". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  176. ^ A., Aleksandra (18 March 2018). "Planted in 1933 this mysterious forest swastika remained unnoticed until 1992 – it was then quickly cut down". Thevintagenews. The Vintage News. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  177. ^ "Der Flaggenkurier". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Flaggenkunde (in German). Achim und Berlin (16/2002 bis 30/2009). ISSN 0949-6173. ["The Flag Courier". Journal of the German Society for Flags.]
  178. ^ José Manuel Erbez. "Order of the New Templars 1907 8 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine". Flags of the World. 21 January 2001.
  179. ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. "Graz 1997, S. 98, and 2006, S. 93 f.". Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus [The occult roots of National Socialism] (in German). Wiesbaden: Marix-Verl. ISBN 9783937715483. OCLC 76560810.
  180. ^ "text of Mein Kampf at Project Gutenberg of Australia". Gutenberg.net.au. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  181. ^ Walther Blachetta: Das Buch der deutschen Sinnzeichen (The book of German sense characters); reprint of 1941; p. 47
  182. ^ Robert Proctor (1988). Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis. Harvard University Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0674745780.
  183. ^ Mark B. Adams (1990). The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia. Oxford University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0195363838.
  184. ^ James Q. Whitman, "Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law", (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 28.
  185. ^ Prynne, Miranda (14 April 2014). . Archived from the original on 14 April 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  186. ^ Verhulsdonck, Gustav (2013). Digital Rhetoric and Global Literacies. IGI. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-4666-4917-0.
  187. ^ Dawn Perlmutter (2003). Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes. CRC Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-1-4200-4104-0.
  188. ^ "Germany Won't Seek EU-Wide Ban on Swastikas". Deutsche Welle. 29 January 2007.
  189. ^ . Le Journal Chrétien. Spcm.org. Archived from the original on 20 April 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  190. ^ (in German) Tageblatt 13 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine 23 September 2006
  191. ^ "3 StR 486/06" (PDF). Federal Court of Justice of Germany. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  192. ^ "Bundesgerichtshof press statement No. 36/2007". Federal Court of Justice of Germany. 15 March 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  193. ^ "Anti-Nazi-Symbole sind nicht strafbar" [Anti-Nazi symbols are not forbidden]. Der Spiegel (in German). 15 March 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  194. ^ "Germany Lifts Ban on Nazi Symbols in Video Games". The Telegraph. 9 August 2018. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
  195. ^ Chalk, Andy (9 August 2018). "Germany Lifts Ban on Swastikas in Videogames". PC Gamer.
  196. ^ a b "Hungary, hammer and sickle ban declared illegal". ANSA. 27 February 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  197. ^ "Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code, Section 335: Use of Symbols of Totalitarianism" (PDF). Ministry of Interior of Hungary. p. 97. (PDF) from the original on 22 February 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2017. Any person who: a) distributes, b) uses before the public at large, or c) publicly exhibits, the swastika, the insignia of the SS, the arrow cross, the sickle and hammer, the five-pointed red star or any symbol depicting the above so as to breach public peace – specifically in a way to offend the dignity of victims of totalitarian regimes and their right to sanctity – is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by custodial arrest, insofar as it did not result in a more serious criminal offense.
  198. ^ "Latvia Bans Nazi, Soviet Symbols at Public Events". Haaretz. 20 June 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  199. ^ "Latvian bill would ban Soviet, Nazi symbols". UPI. 21 June 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  200. ^ lvportals.lv (7 May 2013). "Kā aizliegt to, kas jau ir aizliegts?" (in Latvian). Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  201. ^ Stemple, Hillary (20 May 2010). "Lithuania court rules swastikas are part of historic legacy". JURIST.
  202. ^ Day, Matthew (23 April 2009) "Poland 'to ban' Che Guevara image" 14 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine The Daily Telegraph
  203. ^ a b Ethan McNern. Swastika ban left out of EU's racism law 5 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine, The Scotsman, 30 January 2007
  204. ^ Staff. Hindus opposing EU swastika ban 19 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine, BBC online, 17 January 2007.
  205. ^ Staff (source dgs/Reuters)Hindus Against Proposed EU Swastika Ban 29 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine Der Spiegel online, 17 January 2007
  206. ^ Brazilian Federal Statute 7.716 15 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine 1989-05-01, (Portuguese)
  207. ^ Panama – Native Peoples 30 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine, from Flags of the World. Retrieved 20 February 2006.
  208. ^ Shuster, Simon (14 August 2017). "How the Nazi Flags in Charlottesville Look to a German". Time. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  209. ^ Schofield, Matthew (30 July 2015). "How Germany dealt with its symbols of hate". mcclatchydc.com. McClatchy DC Bureau. Retrieved 18 August 2017. It's notable that when Ku Klux Klan members recently rallied in South Carolina, they carried both the battle flag and the Nazi swastika. The two flags in recent years have been commonly seen together at white supremacist groups and gatherings.
  210. ^ Dickter, Adam; Lipman, Steve; Savage, Nigel (1 June 2010). "ADL Downgrades Swastika As Jewish Hate Symbol". Jewish Week. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  211. ^ "Swastika". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  212. ^ "Swastika: Victoria bans display of Nazi symbol in Australian first". BBC News. 22 June 2022. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  213. ^ Goldman, Tom (23 November 2010). . escapistmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2010.
  214. ^ Telotte, Jay P. (2008). The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology. p. 201. ISBN 978-0252092633. OCLC 811409076.
  215. ^ Campion, Mukti Jain (23 October 2014). "How the world loved the swastika – until Hitler stole it". BBC News. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  216. ^ "Swastika – General Hate Symbols – Neo-Nazi Symbols". www.adl.org. Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  217. ^ Winston, Nama (28 April 2017). "Swastikas Are Less Racist Than Racists Think". www.huffpost.com. Huffington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  218. ^ Ramirez, Marc. "Is the swastika a symbol of hate or peaceful icon? Faith groups try to save reviled emblem". www.usatoday.com. USA Today. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  219. ^ Teitel, Emma (11 February 2022). "Truck protest teaches timely lessons about the current face of antisemitism". www.thestar.com. Toronto Star. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  220. ^ Heller, Steven (9 March 2021). "The Daily Heller: Anti-Hate Symbol Law Will Foster More Hate". www.printmag.com. Print Magazine. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  221. ^ Saidazimova, Gulnoza (23 December 2005). "Tajikistan: Officials Say Swastika Part Of Their Aryan Heritage – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2008". Rferl.org. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  222. ^ John Powers (2007). Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala. pp. 508–509. ISBN 978-1-55939-835-0.
  223. ^ a b c Jonathan H. X. Lee; Kathleen M. Nadeau (2011). Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife. ABC-CLIO. pp. 86–87. ISBN 978-0-313-35066-5.
  224. ^ Stephan Feuchtwang, ed. (2020). Handbook on Religion in China. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 36, 194, 203. ISBN 9781786437969.
  225. ^ [2002 1:25000 Topographical Map Scheme] (in Japanese). Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  226. ^ a b "Japan to remove swastikas from maps as tourists 'think they are Nazi symbols'". www.telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  227. ^ a b "Buddhist Manji Removed from Crunchyroll's Release of Tokyo Revengers". CBR. 21 July 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  228. ^ . Nepalnews.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  229. ^ Frederick J. Simonelli (1995), "The American Nazi Party, 1958–1967" 27 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine, The Historian, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Spring 1995), pp. 553–566
  230. ^ Carnes, Jim (1999), Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators 24 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine, ERIC, Department of Education, US Government, pp. 9–11, 33, 49–50
  231. ^ Вячеслав Лихачев. Нацизм в России. с.5 Archived 26 October 2008 at Archive-It – about symbolic of neo-nazi party "RNU"
  232. ^ Mudde, Cas, ed. (2005). Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge studies in extremism and democracy. London: Routledge. p. 61. ISBN 978-0415355933.
  233. ^ "Сомнительная символика в лагере Азовец: зачем выглядеть, как сторонники ДНР?" [Doubtful symbols in the Azovets camp: why look like DNR supporters?]. www.theinsider.ua (in Ukrainian).
  234. ^ Likhachev, Vyacheslav (July 2016). "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine" (PDF). Russie.NEI.Visions in English. pp. 18–26. (PDF) from the original on 26 October 2016.
  235. ^ CBC News 30 December 2002: Toy pandas bearing swastikas a cultural mix-up
  236. ^ Lewis, Sophie (10 July 2020). "Popular online retailer Shein apologizes for selling swastika necklace after backlash". CBS News. CBS. from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  237. ^ "Emblem or the Seal | TS Adyar". www.ts-adyar.org.
  238. ^ "Pro-Swastika". Pro-Swastika. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  239. ^ "The Official Raelian Symbol gets its swastika back". Raelianews. 17 January 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
  240. ^ Daniel Rancour-Laferriere (2017). The Sign of the Cross: From Golgotha to Genocide. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN 978-1351474214.
  241. ^ Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra; Brian P. Levack; Roy Porter (1999). Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 6: The Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 111–114. ISBN 978-0-485-89105-8.
  242. ^ Stefanie von Schnurbein (2016). Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism. Brill Academic. ISBN 978-90-04-29435-6.
  243. ^ Mees (2008), pp. 141, 193–194, 210–211, 226–227.
  244. ^ Kak, Subhash (9 July 2018). "Romuva and the Vedic Gods of Lithuania". Subhash Kak. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  245. ^ Shnirelman, Victor A. (2000). "Perun, Svarog and Others: Russian Neo-Paganism in Search of Itself". The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology. 21 (3): 25. JSTOR 23818709.
  246. ^ Pilkington, Hilary; Popov, Anton (2009). "Understanding Neo-paganism in Russia: Religion? Ideology? Philosophy? Fantasy?". In George McKay (ed.). Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe. Peter Lang. p. 282. ISBN 978-3039119219.
  • Mees, Bernard (2008). The Science of the Swastika. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-9639776180.

Further reading

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Swastika (category)
 
Look up 卐 or swastika in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  •   Quotations related to Swastika at Wikiquote
  • Quinn, Malcolm (2005), The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-134-85495-0
  • History of the Swastika (US Holocaust Memorial Museum)
  • The Origins of the Swastika BBC News
  • McKay, George. Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe. p. 282.

January 26, 2023
swastika, other, uses, disambiguation, swastika, ancient, religious, cultural, symbol, predominantly, various, eurasian, well, some, african, american, cultures, also, widely, recognized, appropriation, nazi, party, nazis, continues, used, symbol, divinity, sp. For other uses see Swastika disambiguation The swastika 卐 or 卍 is an ancient religious and cultural symbol predominantly in various Eurasian as well as some African and American cultures now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo Nazis 1 2 3 4 It continues to be used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions including Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism 5 6 7 8 1 It generally takes the form of a cross A the arms of which are of equal length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms each bent midway at a right angle 10 11 The swastika is a symbol with many styles and meanings and can be found in many cultures The appropriation of the swastika by the Nazi Party and neo Nazis is the most recognisable modern use of the symbol in the Western world The word swastika comes from Sanskrit स वस त क romanized svastika meaning conducive to well being 12 1 In Hinduism the right facing symbol clockwise 卐 is called swastika symbolizing surya sun prosperity and good luck while the left facing symbol counter clockwise 卍 is called sauwastika symbolising night or tantric aspects of Kali 1 In Jain symbolism it represents Suparshvanatha the seventh of 24 Tirthankaras spiritual teachers and saviours while in Buddhist symbolism it represents the auspicious footprints of the Buddha 1 13 14 In several major Indo European religions the swastika symbolises lightning bolts representing the thunder god and the king of the gods such as Indra in Vedic Hinduism Zeus in the ancient Greek religion Jupiter in the ancient Roman religion and Thor in the ancient Germanic religion 15 The symbol is found in the archeological remains of the Indus Valley Civilisation 16 and Samarra as well as in early Byzantine and Christian artwork 8 Used for the first time by far right Romanian politician A C Cuza as a symbol of international antisemitism prior to World War I 17 18 19 it was a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck for most of the Western world until the 1930s 2 when the German Nazi Party adopted the swastika as an emblem of the Aryan race As a result of World War II and the Holocaust in the West it continues to be strongly associated with Nazism antisemitism 20 21 white supremacism 22 23 or simply evil 24 25 As a consequence its use in some countries including Germany is prohibited by law B However the swastika remains a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Hindu Buddhist and Jain countries such as Nepal India Thailand Mongolia Sri Lanka China and Japan and by some peoples such as the Navajo people of the Southwest United States It is also commonly used in Hindu marriage ceremonies and Dipavali celebrations In various European languages it is known as the fylfot gammadion tetraskelion or cross cramponnee a term in Anglo Norman heraldry German Hakenkreuz French croix gammee Italian croce uncinata Latvian ugunskrusts In Mongolian it is called has khas and mainly used in seals In Chinese it is called 卍字 wanzi pronounced manji in Japanese manja 만자 in Korean and vạn tự chữ vạn in Vietnamese In Balti Tibetan language it is called Yung drung citation needed Reverence for the swastika symbol in Asian cultures in contrast to the stigma attached to it in the West has led to misinterpretations and misunderstandings 2 26 Contents 1 Etymology and nomenclature 2 Appearance 2 1 Written characters 3 Meaning 3 1 North pole 3 2 Comet 3 3 Four winds 4 Prehistory 5 Historical use 5 1 South Asia 5 1 1 Hinduism 5 1 2 Buddhism 5 1 3 Jainism 5 2 East Asia 5 2 1 Japan 5 3 Caucasus 5 4 Northern Europe 5 4 1 Germanic Iron Age 5 4 2 Celts 5 4 3 Balto Slavic 5 4 4 Sami 5 5 Southern Europe 5 5 1 Greco Roman antiquity 5 5 2 Illyrians 5 6 Medieval and early modern Europe 5 7 Non Eurasian samples 5 7 1 Africa 5 7 2 Americas 6 Early 20th century 6 1 Europe 6 1 1 Britain 6 1 2 Denmark 6 1 3 Iceland 6 1 4 Ireland 6 1 5 Finland 6 1 5 1 Finnish military 6 1 6 Latvia 6 1 7 Lithuania 6 1 8 Sweden 6 1 9 Norway 6 2 Eurasia Russia 6 3 North America 7 Association with Nazism 7 1 Use in Nazism 1920 1945 7 2 Use by the Allies 7 3 Post World War II stigmatisation 7 3 1 Germany 7 3 2 Legislation in other European countries 7 3 3 Attempted ban in the European Union 7 3 4 Latin America 7 3 5 United States 7 3 6 Australia 7 3 7 Media 7 3 8 Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate 8 Contemporary use 8 1 Asia 8 1 1 Central Asia 8 1 2 East and Southeast Asia 8 1 3 Indian subcontinent 8 2 Europe and North America 8 2 1 Use by neo Nazis 8 2 2 Western misinterpretation of Asian use 8 3 New religious movements 8 3 1 Theosophy 8 3 2 Raelism 8 3 3 Ananda Marga 8 3 4 Falun Gong 8 3 5 Heathenry 8 3 6 Baltic neopaganism 8 3 7 Slavic Native Faith 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 Further readingEtymology and nomenclature Drawing of a swastika on the Snoldelev Stone 9th century The word swastika has been used in the Indian subcontinent since 500 BCE The word was first recorded by the ancient linguist Paṇini in his work Ashtadhyayi 27 It is alternatively spelled in contemporary texts as svastika 28 and other spellings were occasionally used in the 19th and early 20th century such as suastika 29 It was derived from the Sanskrit term Devanagari स वस त क which transliterates to svastika under the commonly used IAST transliteration system but is pronounced closer to swastika when letters are used with their English values An important early use of the word swastika in a European text was in 1871 with the publications of Heinrich Schliemann who discovered more than 1 800 ancient samples of the swastika symbol and its variants while digging the Hisarlik mound near the Aegean Sea coast for the history of Troy Schliemann linked his findings to the Sanskrit swastika 30 31 32 The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti which is composed of su good well and asti is it is there is 33 The word swasti occurs frequently in the Vedas as well as in classical literature meaning health luck success prosperity and it was commonly used as a greeting 34 35 The final ka is a common suffix that could have multiple meanings 36 According to Monier Williams a majority of scholars consider it a solar symbol 34 The sign implies something fortunate lucky or auspicious and it denotes auspiciousness or well being 34 The earliest known use of the word swastika is in Panini s Ashtadhyayi which uses it to explain one of the Sanskrit grammar rules in the context of a type of identifying mark on a cow s ear 33 Most scholarship suggests that Panini lived in or before the 4th century BCE 37 38 possibly in 6th or 5th century BCE 39 40 By the 19th century the term swastika was adopted into the English lexicon replacing gammadion from Greek gammadion In 1878 Irish scholar Charles Graves used swastika as the common English name for the symbol after defining it as equivalent to the French term croix gammee a cross with arms shaped like the Greek letter gamma G 41 Shortly thereafter British antiquarians Edward Thomas and Robert Sewell separately published their studies about the symbol using swastika as the common English term 42 43 The concept of a reversed swastika was probably first made among European scholars by Eugene Burnouf in 1852 and taken up by Schliemann in Ilios 1880 based on a letter from Max Muller that quotes Burnouf The term sauwastika is used in the sense of backwards swastika by Eugene Goblet d Alviella 1894 In India it the gammadion bears the name of swastika when its arms are bent towards the right and sauwastika when they are turned in the other direction 44 Other names for the symbol include tetragammadion Greek tetragammadion or cross gammadion Latin crux gammata French croix gammee as each arm resembles the Greek letter G gamma 10 hooked cross German Hakenkreuz angled cross Winkelkreuz or crooked cross Krummkreuz cross cramponned cramponnee or cramponny in heraldry as each arm resembles a crampon or angle iron German Winkelmasskreuz fylfot chiefly in heraldry and architecture tetraskelion Greek tetraskelion literally meaning four legged especially when composed of four conjoined legs compare triskelion triskele Greek triskelion 45 ugunskrusts Latvian for Fire Cross other names Cross of Fire Perkonkrusts Cross of Thunder Thunder Cross Cross of Perun Cross of Perkunas Cross of Branches Cross of Laima whirling logs Navajo can denote abundance prosperity healing and luck 46 Appearance Left the left facing sauwastika is a sacred symbol in the Bon and Mahayana Buddhist traditions Right the right facing swastika appears commonly in Hinduism Jainism and Sri Lankan Buddhism 47 48 All swastikas are bent crosses based on a chiral symmetry but they appear with different geometric details as compact crosses with short legs as crosses with large arms and as motifs in a pattern of unbroken lines Chirality describes an absence of reflective symmetry with the existence of two versions that are mirror images of each other The mirror image forms are typically described as left facing or left hand 卍 and right facing or right hand 卐 The compact swastika can be seen as a chiral irregular icosagon 20 sided polygon with fourfold 90 rotational symmetry Such a swastika proportioned on a 5 5 square grid and with the broken portions of its legs shortened by one unit can tile the plane by translation alone The Nazi swastika used a 5 5 diagonal grid but with the legs unshortened 49 Written characters 卍 and 卐 characters The swastika was adopted as a standard character in Chinese 卍 pinyin wan and as such entered various other East Asian languages including Chinese script In Japanese the symbol is called 卍 Hepburn manji or 卍字 manji The swastika is included in the Unicode character sets of two languages In the Chinese block it is U 534D 卍 left facing and U 5350 for the swastika 卐 right facing 50 The latter has a mapping in the original Big5 character set 51 but the former does not although it is in Big5 52 In Unicode 5 2 two swastika symbols and two swastikas were added to the Tibetan block swastika U 0FD5 RIGHT FACING SVASTI SIGN U 0FD7 RIGHT FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS and swastikas U 0FD6 LEFT FACING SVASTI SIGN U 0FD8 LEFT FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS 53 MeaningEuropean hypotheses of the swastika are often treated in conjunction with cross symbols in general such as the sun cross of Bronze Age religion Beyond its certain presence in the proto writing symbol systems such as the Vinca script 54 which appeared during the Neolithic 55 North pole Approximate representation of the Tianmen 天門 Gate of Heaven or Tianshu 天樞 Pivot of Heaven as the precessional north celestial pole with a Ursae Minoris as the pole star with the spinning Chariot constellations in the four phases of time Tian generally translated as heaven in Chinese theology refers to the northern celestial pole 北極 Beiji the pivot and the vault of the sky with its spinning constellations The celestial pivot can be represented by wan 卍 myriad things According to Rene Guenon the swastika represents the north pole and the rotational movement around a centre or immutable axis axis mundi and only secondly it represents the Sun as a reflected function of the north pole As such it is a symbol of life of the vivifying role of the supreme principle of the universe the absolute God in relation to the cosmic order It represents the activity the Hellenic Logos the Hindu Om the Chinese Taiyi Great One of the principle of the universe in the formation of the world 56 According to Guenon the swastika in its polar value has the same meaning of the yin and yang symbol of the Chinese tradition and of other traditional symbols of the working of the universe including the letters G gamma and G symbolising the Great Architect of the Universe of Masonic thought 57 According to the scholar Reza Assasi the swastika represents the north ecliptic north pole centred in z Draconis with the constellation Draco as one of its beams He argues that this symbol was later attested as the four horse chariot of Mithra in ancient Iranian culture They believed the cosmos was pulled by four heavenly horses who revolved around a fixed centre in a clockwise direction He suggests that this notion later flourished in Roman Mithraism as the symbol appears in Mithraic iconography and astronomical representations 58 According to the Russian archaeologist Gennady Zdanovich who studied some of the oldest examples of the symbol in Sintashta culture the swastika symbolises the universe representing the spinning constellations of the celestial north pole centred in a Ursae Minoris specifically the Little and Big Dipper or Chariots or Ursa Minor and Ursa Major 59 Likewise according to Rene Guenon the swastika is drawn by visualising the Big Dipper Great Bear in the four phases of revolution around the pole star 60 Comet Depiction of comets from the Book of Silk Han dynasty 2nd century BCE In their 1985 book Comet Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan argue that the appearance of a rotating comet with a four pronged tail as early as 2 000 years BCE could explain why the swastika is found in the cultures of both the Old World and the pre Columbian Americas The Han dynasty Book of Silk 2nd century BCE depicts such a comet with a swastika like symbol 61 Bob Kobres in a 1992 paper contends that the swastika like comet on the Han dynasty manuscript was labelled a long tailed pheasant star dixing because of its resemblance to a bird s foot or footprint 62 Similar comparisons had been made by J F Hewitt in 1907 63 as well as a 1908 article in Good Housekeeping 64 Kobres goes on to suggest an association of mythological birds and comets also outside of China 62 Four winds In Native American culture particularly among the Pima people of Arizona the swastika is a symbol of the four winds Anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing noted that among the Pima the symbol of the four winds is made from a cross with the four curved arms similar to a broken sun cross and concludes the right angle swastika is primarily a representation of the circle of the four wind gods standing at the head of their trails or directions 65 Prehistory Prehistoric stone in Iran According to Joseph Campbell the earliest known swastika is from 10 000 BCE part of an intricate meander pattern of joined up swastikas found on a late paleolithic figurine of a bird carved from mammoth ivory found in Mezine Ukraine It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylised picture of a stork in flight 66 As the carving was found near phallic objects this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol 67 In the mountains of Iran there are swastikas or spinning wheels inscribed on stone walls which are estimated to be more than 7 000 years old One instance is in Khorashad Birjand on the holy wall Lakh Mazar 68 69 Mirror image swastikas clockwise and counter clockwise have been found on ceramic pottery in the Devetashka cave Bulgaria dated to 6 000 BCE 70 Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3 000 BCE 71 The investigators put forth the hypothesis that the swastika moved westward from the Indian subcontinent to Finland Scandinavia the Scottish Highlands and other parts of Europe 72 better source needed In England neolithic or Bronze Age stone carvings of the symbol have been found on Ilkley Moor such as the Swastika Stone Swastikas have also been found on pottery in archaeological digs in Africa in the area of Kush and on pottery at the Jebel Barkal temples 73 in Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus Koban culture and in Neolithic China in the Majiabang 74 and Majiayao 75 cultures Other Iron Age attestations of the swastika can be associated with Indo European cultures such as the Illyrians 76 Indo Iranians Celts Greeks Germanic peoples and Slavs In Sintashta culture s Country of Towns ancient Indo European settlements in southern Russia it has been found a great concentration of some of the oldest swastika patterns 59 The swastika is also seen in Egypt during the Coptic period Textile number T 231 1923 held at the V amp A Museum in London includes small swastikas in its design This piece was found at Qau el Kebir near Asyut and is dated between 300 and 600 CE 77 The Tierwirbel the German for animal whorl or whirl of animals 78 is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia the Eurasian Steppe and later also in Iron Age Scythian and European Baltic 79 and Germanic culture showing rotational symmetric arrangement of an animal motif often four birds heads Even wider diffusion of this Asiatic theme has been proposed to the Pacific and even North America especially Moundville 80 The petroglyph with swastikas Gegham mountains Armenia circa 8 000 5 000 BCE 81 The Samarra bowl from Iraq circa 4 000 BCE held at the Pergamonmuseum Berlin The swastika in the centre of the design is a reconstruction 82 Swastika seals from Mohenjo daro Pakistan of the Indus Valley civilisation circa 2 100 1 750 BCE preserved at the British Museum 83 A swastika necklace excavated from Marlik Gilan province northern Iran circa 1 200 1 050 BCEHistorical useIn Asia the swastika symbol first appears in the archaeological record around 71 3000 BCE in the Indus Valley Civilisation 26 84 It also appears in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea In all these cultures the swastika symbol does not appear to occupy any marked position or significance appearing as just one form of a series of similar symbols of varying complexity In the Zoroastrian religion of Persia the swastika was a symbol of the revolving sun infinity or continuing creation 85 86 It is one of the most common symbols on Mesopotamian coins 1 The icon has been of spiritual significance to Indian religions such as Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism 8 1 The swastika is a sacred symbol in the Bon religion native to Tibet South Asia Hinduism Hindu Swastikas Hindu swastika Sauwastika The swastika is an important Hindu symbol 8 1 The swastika symbol is commonly used before entrances or on doorways of homes or temples to mark the starting page of financial statements and mandalas constructed for rituals such as weddings or welcoming a newborn 1 87 The swastika has a particular association with Diwali being drawn in rangoli coloured sand or formed with deepak lights on the floor outside Hindu houses and on wall hangings and other decorations 88 In the diverse traditions within Hinduism both the clockwise and counterclockwise swastika are found with different meanings The clockwise or right hand icon is called swastika while the counterclockwise or left hand icon is called sauwastika or sauvastika 1 The clockwise swastika is a solar symbol Surya suggesting the motion of the Sun in India the northern hemisphere where it appears to enter from the east then ascend to the south at midday exiting to the west 1 The counterclockwise sauwastika is less used it connotes the night and in tantric traditions it is an icon for the goddess Kali the terrifying form of Devi Durga 1 The symbol also represents activity karma motion wheel and in some contexts the lotus 5 6 According to Norman McClelland its symbolism for motion and the Sun may be from shared prehistoric cultural roots 89 A swastika is typical in Hindu temples A Hindu temple in Rajasthan India A swastika inside a temple The Balinese Hindu pura Goa Lawah entrance A Balinese Hindu shrineBuddhism Swastika with 24 beads japamala primarily used in Malaysian Buddhism In Buddhism the swastika is considered to symbolise the auspicious footprints of the Buddha 1 13 The left facing sauwastika is often imprinted on the chest feet or palms of Buddha images It is an aniconic symbol for the Buddha in many parts of Asia and homologous with the dharma wheel 6 The shape symbolises eternal cycling a theme found in the samsara doctrine of Buddhism 6 The swastika symbol is common in esoteric tantric traditions of Buddhism along with Hinduism where it is found with chakra theories and other meditative aids 87 The clockwise symbol is more common and contrasts with the counter clockwise version common in the Tibetan Bon tradition and locally called yungdrung 90 Jainism Jain symbol Prateek containing a swastikaIn Jainism it is a symbol of the seventh tirthaṅkara Suparsvanatha 1 In the Svetambara tradition it is also one of the aṣṭamaṅgala or eight auspicious symbols All Jain temples and holy books must contain the swastika and ceremonies typically begin and end with creating a swastika mark several times with rice around the altar Jains use rice to make a swastika in front of statues and then put an offering on it usually a ripe or dried fruit a sweet Hindi म ठ ई miṭhai or a coin or currency note The four arms of the swastika symbolise the four places where a soul could be reborn in samsara the cycle of birth and death svarga heaven naraka hell manushya humanity or tiryancha as flora or fauna before the soul attains moksha salvation as a siddha having ended the cycle of birth and death and become omniscient 7 East Asia Main articles Chinese auspicious ornaments in textile and clothing Wan and List of Chinese symbols designs and art motifs The swastika is an auspicious symbol in China where it was introduced from India with Buddhism 91 In 693 during the Tang dynasty it was declared as the source of all good fortune and was called wan by Wu Zetian becoming a Chinese word 91 The Chinese character for wan pinyin wan is similar to the swastika in shape and can be appeared into two different variations 卐 and 卍 As the Chinese character wan 卐 and or 卍 is homonym for the Chinese word of ten thousand 万 and infinity as such the Chinese character is itself a symbol of immortality 92 and infinity 93 175 It was also a representation of longevity 93 175 The Chinese character wan could be used as a stand alone 卐 or 卍 or as be used as pairs 卐 卍 in Chinese visual arts decorative arts and clothing due to its auspicious connotation 93 175 Adding the character wan 卐 and or 卍 to other auspicious Chinese symbols or patterns can multiply that wish by 10 000 times 91 93 175 It can be combined with other Chinese characters such as the Chinese character shou 壽 for longevity where it is sometimes even integrated into the Chinese character shou to augment the menaning of longevity 93 175 The paired swastika symbols 卐 and 卍 are included at least since the Liao Dynasty 907 1125 CE as part of the Chinese writing system and are variant characters for 萬 or 万 wan in Mandarin 만 man in Korean Cantonese and Japanese vạn in Vietnamese meaning myriad 94 The character wan can also be stylized in the form of the xiangyun Chinese auspicious clouds Chinese character wan integrated into one of the stylistic versions of the Chinese character shou Paired character wan on a dragon robe Qing dynastyJapan The mon family crest of the Hachisuka clan When the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in the 8th century the swastika was adopted into the Japanese language and culture It is commonly referred as the manji lit 10 000 character Since the Middle Ages it has been used as a mon by various Japanese families such as Tsugaru clan Hachisuka clan or around 60 clans that belong to Tokugawa clan 95 On Japanese maps a swastika left facing and horizontal is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple The right facing swastika is often referred to as the gyaku manji 逆卍 lit reverse swastika or migi manji 右卍 lit right swastika and can also be called kagi juji 鉤十字 literally hook cross In Chinese and Japanese art the swastika is often found as part of a repeating pattern One common pattern called sayagata in Japanese comprises left and right facing swastikas joined by lines 96 As the negative space between the lines has a distinctive shape the sayagata pattern is sometimes called the key fret motif in English citation needed Caucasus Armenian arevakhach In Armenia the swastika is called the arevakhach and kerkhach Armenian կեռխաչ 97 dubious discuss and is the ancient symbol of eternity and eternal light i e God Swastikas in Armenia were found on petroglyphs from the copper age predating the Bronze Age During the Bronze Age it was depicted on cauldrons belts medallions and other items 98 Among the oldest petroglyphs is the seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet Է E which means is or to be depicted as a half swastika Swastikas can also be seen on early Medieval churches and fortresses including the principal tower in Armenia s historical capital city of Ani 97 The same symbol can be found on Armenian carpets cross stones khachkar and in medieval manuscripts as well as on modern monuments as a symbol of eternity 99 Old petroglyphs of four beam and other swastikas were recorded in Dagestan in particular among the Avars 100 According to Vakhushti of Kartli the tribal banner of the Avar khans depicted a wolf with a standard with a double spiral swastika 101 Petroglyphs with swastikas were depicted on medieval Vainakh tower architecture see sketches by scholar Bruno Plaetschke from the 1920s 102 Thus a rectangular swastika was made in engraved form on the entrance of a residential tower in the settlement Khimoy Chechnya 102 Avar old petroglyph 100 Avar folk swastika Khachkar with swastikas and hexafoils in Sanahin Armenia Swastika on the medieval tower arche in Khimoy ChechnyaNorthern Europe Germanic Iron Age Main article Swastika Germanic Iron Age The swastika shape also called a fylfot appears on various Germanic Migration Period and Viking Age artifacts such as the 3rd century Vaerlose Fibula from Zealand Denmark the Gothic spearhead from Brest Litovsk today in Belarus the 9th century Snoldelev Stone from Ramso Denmark and numerous Migration Period bracteates drawn left facing or right facing 103 The pagan Anglo Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo England contained numerous items bearing the swastika now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 104 failed verification The swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in Kent in a grave of about the 6th century Hilda Ellis Davidson theorised clarification needed that the swastika symbol was associated with Thor possibly representing his Mjolnir symbolic of thunder and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun cross 104 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 104 Some of the swastikas on the items on display at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are depicted with such care and art that according to Davidson it must have possessed special significance as a funerary symbol 104 The runic inscription on the 8th century Saebo sword has been taken as evidence of the swastika as a symbol of Thor in Norse paganism Celts The bronze frontispiece of a ritual pre Christian c 350 50 BCE shield found in the River Thames near Battersea Bridge hence Battersea Shield is embossed with 27 swastikas in bronze and red enamel 105 An Ogham stone found in Anglish Co Kerry Ireland CIIC 141 was modified into an early Christian gravestone and was decorated with a cross pattee and two swastikas 106 The Book of Kells c 800 CE contains swastika shaped ornamentation At the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire there is a swastika shaped pattern engraved in a stone known as the Swastika Stone 107 A number of swastikas have been found embossed in Galician metal pieces and carved in stones mostly from the Castro culture period although there also are contemporary examples imitating old patterns for decorative purposes 108 109 Balto Slavic Ancient symbol the Hands of God or Hands of Svarog Polish Rece Swaroga 110 The swastika is an ancient Baltic thunder cross symbol perkona krusts also fire cross ugunskrusts used to decorate objects traditional clothing and in archaeological excavations 111 112 According to painter Stanislaw Jakubowski the little sun Polish sloneczko is an Early Slavic pagan symbol of the Sun he claimed it was engraved on wooden monuments built near the final resting places of fallen Slavs to represent eternal life The symbol was first seen in his collection of Early Slavic symbols and architectural features which he named Praslowianskie motywy architektoniczne Polish Early Slavic Architectural Motifs His work was published in 1923 113 The Boreyko coat of arms with red swastika was used by several noble families in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth 114 The Russians according to Boris Kuftin unlike of some other Slavic peoples the swastika was often used as a decorative element and was the basis of the ornament on traditional weaving products 115 Many samples are described on the instance of a women s folk costume at the Meshchera Lowlands 115 In modern Russia the name kolovrat Russian kolovrat literally spinning wheel is popularly associated with the swastika but there are no ethnographic sources confirming this 116 According to some authors Russian names popularly associated with the swastika include veterok breeze 117 ognevtsi little flames geese hares a towel with a swastika was called a towel with hares or little horses 118 At the same time similar word koleso wheel for the name of rosette shaped amulets such as a hexafoil thunder wheel e g are presents in authentic folklore in particular of the Russian North 119 120 Swastika on the Lielvarde Belt Latvia Polish Sloneczko little sun kolovrat spinning wheel Boreyko coat of armsSami An object very much like a hammer or a double axe is depicted among the magical symbols on the drums of Sami noaidi used in their religious ceremonies before Christianity was established The name of the Sami thunder god was Horagalles thought to derive from Old Man Thor THorr 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 104 Southern Europe Greco Roman antiquity Various meander patterns a k a Greek keys Ancient Greek architectural clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs There are also gold plate fibulae from the 8th century BCE decorated with an engraved swastika 121 Related symbols in classical Western architecture include the cross the three legged triskele or triskelion and the rounded lauburu The swastika symbol is also known in these contexts by a number of names especially gammadion 122 or rather the tetra gammadion The name gammadion comes from its being seen as being made up of four Greek gamma G letters Ancient Greek architectural designs are replete with the interlinking symbol In Greco Roman art and architecture and in Romanesque and Gothic art in the West isolated swastikas are relatively rare and the swastika is more commonly found as a repeated element in a border or tessellation The swastika often represented perpetual motion reflecting the design of a rotating windmill or watermill A meander of connected swastikas makes up the large band that surrounds the Augustan Ara Pacis A design of interlocking swastikas is one of several tessellations on the floor of the cathedral of Amiens France 123 A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif 124 and can be seen in more recent buildings as a neoclassical element A swastika border is one form of meander and the individual swastikas in such a border are sometimes called Greek keys There have also been swastikas found on the floors of Pompeii 125 Greek tetraskelion lauburu Swastika on a Greek silver stater coin from Corinth 6th century BCE Roman mosaic of La Olmeda SpainIllyrians The swastika was widespread among the Illyrians symbolising the Sun The Sun cult was the main Illyrian cult the Sun was represented by a swastika in clockwise motion and it stood for the movement of the Sun 126 Medieval and early modern Europe Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artefacts from Iron Age Europe 97 127 128 129 10 In Christianity the swastika is used as a hooked version of the Christian Cross the symbol of Christ s victory over death Some Christian churches built in the Romanesque and Gothic eras are decorated with swastikas carrying over earlier Roman designs Swastikas are prominently displayed in a mosaic in the St Sophia church of Kyiv Ukraine dating from the 12th century They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on a tomb in the Basilica of St Ambrose in Milan 130 A ceiling painted in 1910 in the church of St Laurent in Grenoble has many swastikas It can be visited today because the church became the archaeological museum of the city A proposed direct link between it and a swastika floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens which was built on top of a pagan site at Amiens France in the 13th century is considered unlikely The stole worn by a priest in the 1445 painting of the Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden presents the swastika form simply as one way of depicting the cross Swastikas also appear in art and architecture during the Renaissance and Baroque era The fresco The School of Athens shows an ornament made out of swastikas and the symbol can also be found on the facade of the Santa Maria della Salute a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice In the Polish First Republic the symbol of the swastika was also popular with the nobility According to chronicles the Rus prince Oleg who in the 9th century attacked Constantinople nailed his shield which had a large red swastika painted on it to the city s gates 131 Several noble houses e g Boreyko Borzym and Radziechowski from Ruthenia also had swastikas as their coat of arms The family reached its greatness in the 14th and 15th centuries and its crest can be seen in many heraldry books produced at that time The swastika was also a heraldic symbol for example on the Boreyko coat of arms used by noblemen in Poland and Ukraine In the 19th century the swastika was one of the Russian Empire s symbols and was used on coinage as a backdrop to the Russian eagle 132 133 Bashkirs symbol of the sun and fertility Mosaic swastika in an excavated Byzantine church in Shavei Tzion Israel A swastika composed of Hebrew letters as a mystical symbol from the Jewish Kabbalistic work Parashat Eliezer from the 18th century or earlier Swastikas on the vestments of the effigy of Bishop William Edington d 1366 in Winchester Cathedral The Victorian era reproduction of the Swastika Stone on Ilkley Moor which sits near the original to aid visitors in interpreting the carvingNon Eurasian samples Africa Swastikas can be seen in various African cultures In Ethiopia the Swastika is carved in the window of the famous 12th century Biete Maryam one of the Rock Hewn Churches Lalibela 3 In Ghana the swastika is among the adinkra symbols of the Akan peoples Called nkontim swastikas could be found on Ashanti gold weights and clothing 134 Ashanti weight in Africa Nkontim adinkra symbol from Ghana representing loyalty and readiness to serve Carved fretwork forming a swastika on the Biete Maryam in EthiopiaAmericasThe swastika is a Navajo symbol for good luck also translated to whirling log Though it was also used by some Native American groups many object to its use today 135 4 136 137 The symbol was used on state road signs in Arizona 138 Pima symbol of the four windsEarly 20th centuryMain article Western use of the swastika 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 Schliemann who discovered the symbol in the site of ancient Troy and associated it with the ancient migrations of Proto Indo Europeans whose proto language was not coincidentally termed Proto Indo Germanic by German language historians He connected it with similar shapes found on ancient pots in Germany and theorised clarification needed that the swastika was a significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors linking it to ancient Teutons Greeks of the time of Homer and Indians of the Vedic era 139 140 By the early 20th century it was used worldwide and was regarded as a symbol of good luck and success Schliemann s work soon became intertwined with the political volkisch movements which used the swastika as a symbol for the Aryan race a concept that theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg equated with a Nordic master race originating in northern Europe Since its adoption by the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler the swastika has been associated with Nazism fascism racism in its white supremacy form the Axis powers in World War II and the Holocaust in much of the West The swastika remains a core symbol of neo Nazi groups The Benedictine choir school at Lambach Abbey Upper Austria which Hitler attended for several months as a boy had a swastika chiseled into the monastery portal and also the wall above the spring grotto in the courtyard by 1868 Their origin was the personal coat of arms of Abbot Theoderich Hagn of the monastery in Lambach which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field 141 Europe Further information Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century Europe Britain The British author and poet Rudyard Kipling used the symbol on the cover art of a number of his works including The Five Nations 1903 which has it twinned with an elephant Once Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power Kipling ordered that the swastika should no longer adorn his books citation needed In 1927 a red swastika defaced by a Union Jack was proposed as a flag for the Union of South Africa 142 Denmark Carlsberg s Elephant Tower The Danish brewery company Carlsberg Group used the swastika as a logo 143 from the 19th century until the middle of the 1930s when it was discontinued because of association with the Nazi Party in neighbouring Germany In Copenhagen at the entrance gate and tower of the company s headquarters built in 1901 swastikas can still be seen The tower is supported by four stone elephants each with a swastika on each side The tower they support is topped with a spire in the middle of which is a swastika 144 Iceland The swastika or the Thor s hammer as the logo was called was used as the logo for H f Eimskipafjelag Islands 145 from its founding in 1914 until the Second World War when it was discontinued and changed to read only the letters Eimskip Ireland The Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912 located on Shelbourne Road Ballsbridge a district of Dublin Ireland In the 1950s Heinrich Boll came across a van belonging to the company while he was staying in Ireland leading to some awkward moments before he realised 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 146 147 Finland In Finland the swastika vaarapaa meaning crooked head and later hakaristi meaning hook cross was often used in traditional folk art products as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood The swastika was also used by the Finnish Air Force until 1945 and is still used on air force flags The tursaansydan an elaboration on the swastika is used by scouts in some instances 148 and by a student organisation 149 The Finnish village of Tursa uses the tursaansydan as a kind of a certificate of authenticity on products made there and is the origin of this name of the symbol meaning heart of Tursa 150 which is also known as the mursunsydan walrus heart Traditional textiles are still made in Finland with swastikas as parts of traditional ornaments Finnish military The aircraft roundel and insignia of the Finnish Air force from 1934 to 1945 The Lotta Svard emblem designed by Eric Wasstrom in 1921 Order of the Cross of Liberty of Finland The Finnish Air Force used the swastika as an emblem introduced in 1918 until January 2017 151 The type of swastika adopted by the air force was the symbol of luck for the Swedish count Eric von Rosen who donated one of its earliest aircraft he later became a prominent figure in the Swedish Nazi movement The swastika was also used by the women s paramilitary organisation Lotta Svard which was banned in 1944 in accordance with the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the allied Soviet Union and Britain The President of Finland is the grand master of the Order of the White Rose According to the protocol the president shall wear the Grand Cross of the White Rose with collar on formal occasions The original design of the collar decorated with nine swastikas dates from 1918 and was designed by the artist Akseli Gallen Kallela The Grand Cross with the swastika collar has been awarded 41 times to foreign heads of state To avoid misunderstandings the swastika decorations were replaced by fir crosses at the decision of president Urho Kekkonen in 1963 after it became known that the President of France Charles De Gaulle was uncomfortable with the swastika collar Also a design by Gallen Kallela from 1918 the Cross of Liberty has a swastika pattern in its arms The Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the standard of the President of Finland 152 In December 2007 a silver replica of the World War II period Finnish air defence s relief ring decorated with a swastika became available as a part of a charity campaign 153 The original war time idea was that the public swap their precious metal rings for the state air defence s relief ring made of iron In 2017 the old logo of Finnish Air Force Command with swastika was replaced by a new logo showing golden eagle and a circle of wings However the logo of Finland s air force academy still keeps the swastika symbol 154 Latvia Latvian Air Force roundel until 1940 Latvia adopted the swastika for its Air Force in 1918 1919 and continued its use until the Soviet occupation in 1940 155 156 The cross itself was maroon on a white background mirroring the colors of the Latvian flag Earlier versions pointed counter clockwise while later versions pointed clock wise and eliminated the white background 157 158 Various other Latvian Army units and the Latvian War College 159 the predecessor of the National Defence Academy also had adopted the symbol in their battle flags and insignia during the Latvian War of Independence 160 A stylised fire cross is the base of the Order of Lacplesis the highest military decoration of Latvia for participants of the War of Independence 161 The Perkonkrusts an ultra nationalist political organisation active in the 1930s also used the fire cross as one of its symbols Lithuania The swastika symbol Lithuanian sukurelis is a traditional Baltic ornament 111 162 found on relics dating from at least the 13th century 163 The swastika for Lithuanians represent the history and memory of their Lithuanians ancestors as well as the Baltic people at large 164 There are monuments in Lithuania such as the Freedom Monument in Rokiskis where the swastika can be found 164 Sweden ASEA logo before 1933 The Swedish company ASEA now a part of ABB in the late 1800s introduced a company logo featuring a swastika The logo was replaced in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany During the early 1900s the swastika was used as a symbol of electric power perhaps because it resembled a waterwheel or turbine On maps of the period the sites of hydroelectric power stations were marked with swastikas Norway Starting in 1917 Mikal Sylten s staunchly anti semitic periodical Nationalt Tidsskrift took up the swastika as a symbol three years before Adolf Hitler chose to do so 165 The headquarters of the Oslo Municipal Power Station was designed by architects Bjercke and Eliassen in 1928 1931 Swastikas adorn its wrought iron gates The architects knew the swastika as a symbol of electricity and were probably not yet aware that it had been usurped by the German Nazi party and would soon become the foremost symbol of the German Reich The fact that these gates survived the cleanup after the German occupation of Norway during WW II is a testimony to the innocence and good faith of the power plant and its architects The architects Bjercke and Eliassen knew the swastika as a symbol of power plants on maps in Scandinavia and as the logo of Allmanna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget ASEA 166 Eurasia Russia The left handed swastika was a favorite sign of the last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna She wore a talisman in the form of a swastika put it everywhere for happiness including on her suicide letters from Tobolsk 167 later drew with a pencil on the wall and in the window opening of the room in the Ipatiev House which served as the place of the last imprisonment of the royal family and on the wallpaper above the bed 168 The Russian Provisional Government of 1917 printed a number of new bank notes with right facing diagonally rotated swastikas in their centres 169 The banknote design was initially intended for the Mongolian national bank but was re purposed for Russian ruble after the February revolution Swastikas were depicted and on some Soviet credit cards sovznaks printed with cliches that were in circulation in 1918 1922 170 During the Russian Civil War the swastika was present in the symbolism of the uniform of some units of the White Army Asiatic Cavalry Division of Baron Ungern in Siberia and Bogd Khanate of Mongolia which is explained by the significant number of Buddhists within it 171 The Red Army s ethnic Kalmyk units wore distinct armbands featuring the swastika with RSFSR Roman RSFSR inscriptions on them 172 Badges worn by the Kalmyk formations of the Red Army in 1919 Flag of Karakorum Altai Government in Siberia 1918 1922 Flag of Tuva Tuvan People s Republic 1921 1926 North America Further information Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century North America The swastika motif is found in some traditional Native American art and iconography Historically the design has been found in excavations of Mississippian era sites in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys and on objects associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex S E C C It is also widely used by a number of southwestern tribes most notably the Navajo and plains nations such as the Dakota Among various tribes the swastika carries different meanings To the Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan to the Navajo it is one symbol for the whirling log tsin naalwoli a sacred image representing a legend that is used in healing rituals 173 A brightly coloured First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada 174 Before the 1930s the symbol for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army was a red diamond with a yellow swastika a tribute to the large Native American population in the southwestern United States It was later replaced with a thunderbird symbol The town of Swastika Ontario Canada and the hamlet of Swastika New York were named after the symbol From 1909 to 1916 the K R I T automobile manufactured in Detroit Michigan used a right facing swastika as their trademark The swastika in North America Chief William Neptune of the Passamaquoddy wearing a headdress and outfit adorned with swastikas Chilocco Indian Agricultural School basketball team in 1909 Original insignia of the 45th Infantry Division Pillow cover offered by the Girls Club in The Ladies Home Journal in 1912Association with NazismUse in Nazism 1920 1945 Further information Fascist symbolism Nazi symbolism Occultism in Nazism and Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate Nazi Party Emblems Party badge Parteiadler Party eagle Golden Party Badge The swastika was widely used in Europe at the start of the 20th century It symbolised many things to the Europeans with the most common symbolism being of good luck and auspiciousness 20 In the wake of widespread popular usage in post World War I Germany the newly established Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika in 1920 175 176 The Nazi Party emblem was a black swastika rotated 45 degrees on a white circle on a red background This insignia was used on the party s flag badge and armband Hitler also designed his personal standard using a black swastika sitting flat on one arm not rotated 177 Before the Nazis the swastika was already in use as a symbol of German volkisch nationalist movements Volkische Bewegung Jose Manuel Erbez says The first time the swastika was used with an Aryan meaning was on 25 December 1907 when the self named Order of the New Templars a secret society founded by Lanz von Liebenfels hoisted at Werfenstein Castle Austria a yellow flag with a swastika and four fleurs de lys 178 However Liebenfels was drawing on an already established use of the symbol 179 The flag of the Nazi Party National Socialist German Workers Party NSDAP The national flag of Germany 1935 1945 which differs from the NSDAP flag in that the white circle with the swastika is off center In his 1925 work Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler writes I myself meanwhile after innumerable attempts had laid down a final form a flag with a red background a white disk and a black hooked cross 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 hooked cross 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 colours of the flag of the old German Empire He also stated As National Socialists we see our program in our flag In red we see the social idea of the movement in white the nationalistic idea in the hooked cross 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 180 The swastika was also understood as the symbol of the creating effecting life das Symbol des schaffenden wirkenden Lebens and as race emblem of Germanism Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums 181 The concept of racial hygiene was an ideology central to Nazism though it is scientific racism 182 183 High ranking Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg noted that the Indo Aryan peoples were both a model to be imitated and a warning of the dangers of the spiritual and racial confusion that he believed arose from the proximity of races The Nazis co opted the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan master race On 14 March 1933 shortly after Hitler s appointment as Chancellor of Germany the NSDAP flag was hoisted alongside Germany s national colors As part of the Nuremberg Laws the NSDAP flag with the swastika slightly offset from center was adopted as the sole national flag of Germany on 15 September 1935 184 Flag of the Order of the New Templars designed 1907 with a swastika used as volkisch German ethno nationalist symbol Heinrich Pudor s volkisch Treu Deutsch True German 1918 with a swastika From the collections of Leipzig City Museum German World War I helmet with swastika used by a member of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt a right wing paramilitary Free Corps participating in the Kapp Putsch 1920 Broken sun cross or circle swastika official symbol of the Thule Society volkisch German Faith Movement 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking SS Schalburg Corps and others Logo of the British Imperial Fascist League 1929 1939 Use by the Allies Swastikas marking downed German aircraft on the fuselage sides of a RAF SpitfireDuring World War II it was common to use small swastikas to mark air to air victories on the sides of Allied aircraft and at least one British fighter pilot inscribed a swastika in his logbook for each German plane he shot down 185 Post World War II stigmatisation Because of its use by Nazi Germany the swastika since the 1930s has been largely associated with Nazism In the aftermath of World War II it has been considered a symbol of hate in the West 186 and of white supremacy in many Western countries 187 As a result all use of it or its use as a Nazi or hate symbol is prohibited in some countries including Germany In some countries such as the United States in the 2003 case Virginia v Black the highest courts have ruled that the local governments can prohibit the use of swastika along with other symbols such as cross burning if the intent of the use is to intimidate others 21 Germany Further information Strafgesetzbuch section 86a The German and Austrian postwar criminal code makes the public showing of the swastika the sig rune the Celtic cross specifically the variations used by white power activists the wolfsangel the odal rune and the Totenkopf skull illegal except for scholarly reasons It is also censored from the reprints of 1930s railway timetables published by the Reichsbahn The swastikas on Hindu Buddhist and Jain temples are exempt as religious symbols cannot be banned in Germany 188 A controversy was stirred by the decision of several police departments to begin inquiries against anti fascists 189 In late 2005 police raided the offices of the punk rock label and mail order store Nix Gut Records and confiscated merchandise depicting crossed out swastikas and fists smashing swastikas In 2006 the Stade police department started an inquiry against anti fascist youths using a placard depicting a person dumping a swastika into a trashcan The placard was displayed in opposition to the campaign of right wing nationalist parties for local elections 190 On Friday 17 March 2006 a member of the Bundestag Claudia Roth reported herself to the German police for displaying a crossed out swastika in multiple demonstrations against Neo Nazis and subsequently got the Bundestag to suspend her immunity from prosecution She intended to show the absurdity of charging anti fascists with using fascist symbols We don t need prosecution of non violent young people engaging against right wing extremism On 15 March 2007 the Federal Court of Justice of Germany Bundesgerichtshof held that the crossed out symbols were clearly directed against a revival of national socialist endeavors thereby settling the dispute for the future 191 192 193 On 9 August 2018 Germany lifted the ban on the usage of swastikas and other Nazi symbols in video games Through the change in the interpretation of the law games that critically look at current affairs can for the first time be given a USK age rating USK managing director Elisabeth Secker told CTV This has long been the case for films and with regards to the freedom of the arts this is now rightly also the case with computer and videogames 194 195 Legislation in other European countries Until 2013 in Hungary it was a criminal misdemeanour to publicly display totalitarian symbols including the swastika the SS insignia and the Arrow Cross punishable by custodial arrest 196 197 Display for academic educational artistic or journalistic reasons was allowed at the time The communist symbols of hammer and sickle and the red star were also regarded as totalitarian symbols and had the same restriction by Hungarian criminal law until 2013 196 In Latvia public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols including the Nazi swastika is prohibited in public events since 2013 198 199 However in a court case from 2007 a regional court in Riga held that the swastika can be used as an ethnographic symbol in which case the ban does not apply 200 In Lithuania public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols including the Nazi swastika is an administrative offence punishable by a fine from 150 to 300 euros According to judicial practice display of a non Nazi swastika is legal 201 In Poland public display of Nazi symbols including the Nazi swastika is a criminal offence punishable by up to eight years of imprisonment The use of the swastika as a religious symbol is legal 202 Attempted ban in the European Union The European Union s Executive Commission proposed a European Union wide anti racism law in 2001 but European Union states failed to agree on the balance between prohibiting racism and freedom of expression 203 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 criminalise 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 204 205 The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti racism laws on 29 January 2007 203 Latin America The manufacture distribution or broadcasting of the swastika with the intent to propagate Nazism is a crime in Brazil as dictated by article 20 paragraph 1 of federal statute 7 716 passed in 1989 The penalty is a two to five years prison term and a fine 206 The former flag of the Guna Yala autonomous territory of Panama was based on a swastika design In 1942 a ring was added to the centre of the flag to differentiate it from the symbol of the Nazi Party this version subsequently fell into disuse 207 United States The public display of Nazi era German flags or any other flags is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom of speech 208 The Nazi Reichskriegsflagge has also been seen on display at white supremacist events within United States borders side by side with the Confederate battle flag 209 In 2010 the Anti Defamation League ADL downgraded the swastika from its status as a Jewish hate symbol saying We know that the swastika has for some lost its meaning as the primary symbol of Nazism and instead become a more generalised symbol of hate 210 The ADL notes on their website that the symbol is often used as shock graffiti by juveniles rather than by individuals who hold white supremacist beliefs but it is still a predominant symbol amongst American white supremacists particularly as a tattoo design and used with anti Semitic intention 211 Australia In 2022 Victoria was the first Australian state to ban the display of the Nazi s swastika People who intentionally break this law will face a one year jail sentence or A 22 000 12 300 15 000 fine 212 Media In 2010 Microsoft officially spoke out against use of the swastika by players of the first person shooter Call of Duty Black Ops In Black Ops players are allowed to customise their name tags to represent essentially whatever they want The swastika can be created and used but Stephen Toulouse director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement said players with the symbol on their name tag will be banned if someone reports it as inappropriate from Xbox Live 213 In the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular in Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando Florida the swastikas on German trucks aircraft and actor uniforms in the reenactment of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark were removed in 2004 The swastika has been replaced by a stylised Greek cross 214 Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate Beginning in the early 2000s partially as a reaction to the publication of a book titled The Swastika Symbol Beyond Redemption by Steven Heller 26 there has been a movement led in part by Hindu Buddhist indigenous peoples Jain historians anthropologists linguists and other scholars to reclaim what was seen as their swastika symbol until Hitler stole it 215 These groups argue that the swastika is distinct from the Nazi symbol A key part of this argument rests on the fact that Adolf Hitler referred to the symbol as a hooked cross hakenkreuz which is the literal German language term for the symbol The main barrier to the effort to reclaim restore or reassess the swastika comes from the decades of extremely negative association in the Western world following the Nazi Party s adoption of it in the 1930s As well white supremacist groups still cling to the symbol as an icon of power and identity 216 In defense of the swastika Nama Winston writing for the Huffington Post has written that the swastika is less racist than racists think and was traditionally a symbol of peace and good fortune 217 Many media organizations in the West also continue to describe neo Nazi usage of the symbol as a swastika or sometimes with the Nazi adjective written as Nazi Swastika 218 219 groups that oppose this media terminology do not wish to censor such usage but rather to shift coverage of antisemitic and hateful events to describe the symbol in this context as a hakenkreuz or hooked cross 220 Contemporary useAsia Central Asia In 2005 authorities in Tajikistan called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national symbol President Emomali Rahmonov declared the swastika an Aryan symbol and 2006 the year of Aryan culture which would be a time to study and popularise Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilisation raise a new generation of Tajiks with the spirit of national self determination and develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures 221 East and Southeast Asia In East Asia the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities It is commonly found in Buddhist temples religious artifacts texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups It also appears as a design or motif singularly or woven into a pattern on textiles architecture and various decorative objects as a symbol of luck and good fortune The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition but in the left facing orientation 222 223 Many Chinese religions make use of the swastika symbol including Guiyidao and Shanrendao The Red Swastika Society formed in China in 1922 as the philanthropic branch of Guiyidao became the largest supplier of emergency relief in China during World War II in the same manner as the Red Cross in the rest of the world The Red Swastika Society abandoned mainland China in 1954 settling first in Hong Kong then in Taiwan They continue to use the red swastika as their symbol 224 In Japan the swastika is also used as a map symbol and is designated by the Survey Act and related Japanese governmental rules to denote a Buddhist temple 225 Japan has considered changing this symbols due to occasional controversy and misunderstanding by foreigners 226 The symbol is sometimes censored in international versions of Japanese works such as anime 227 Censorship of this symbol in Japan and in Japanese media abroad has been subject to occasional controversy related to freedom of speech with critics of the censorship arguing it does not respect history nor freedom of speech 226 227 The city of Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture designates this symbol as its official flag which stemmed from its use in the emblem of the Tsugaru clan the lords of Hirosaki Domain during the Edo period citation needed Among the predominantly Hindu population of Bali in Indonesia the swastika is common in temples homes and public spaces Similarly the swastika is a common icon associated with Buddha s footprints in Theravada Buddhist communities of Myanmar Thailand and Cambodia 223 Swastika on a temple in Korea Symbol of Shanrendao a Confucian Taoism religious movement in Northeast China Flag of the Red Swastika Society the largest emergency relief group in China during World War IIIndian subcontinent In Bhutan India Nepal and Sri Lanka the swastika is common Temples businesses and other organisations such as the Buddhist libraries Ahmedabad Stock Exchange and the Nepal Chamber of Commerce 228 use the swastika in reliefs or logos 223 Swastikas are ubiquitous in Indian and Nepalese communities located on shops buildings transport vehicles and clothing The swastika remains prominent in Hindu ceremonies such as weddings The left facing sauwastika symbol is found in tantric rituals 1 Musaeus College in Colombo Sri Lanka a Buddhist girls school has a left facing swastika in their school logo In India Swastik and Swastika with their spelling variants are first names for males and females respectively for instance with Swastika Mukherjee The Emblem of Bihar contains two swastikas In Bhutan the swastika motif is found in architecture fabrics and religious ceremonies Europe and North America Use by neo Nazis As with many neo Nazi groups across the world the American Nazi Party used the swastika as part of its flag before its first dissolution in 1967 The symbol was chosen by the organisation s founder George Lincoln Rockwell 229 It was re used by successor organisations in 1983 without the publicity Rockwell s organisation enjoyed The swastika in various iconographic forms is one of the hate symbols identified in use as graffiti in US schools and is described as such in a 1999 US Department of Education document Responding to Hate at School A Guide for Teachers Counselors and Administrators edited by Jim Carnes which provides advice to educators on how to support students targeted by such hate symbols and address hate graffiti Examples given show that it is often used alongside other white supremacist symbols such as those of the Ku Klux Klan and note a three bladed variation used by skinheads white supremacists and some South African extremist groups 230 The neo Nazi Russian National Unity group s branch in Estonia is officially registered under the name Kolovrat and published an extremist newspaper in 2001 under the same name 231 A criminal investigation found the paper included an array of racial epithets One Narva resident was sentenced to one year in jail for distribution of Kolovrat 232 The Kolovrat has since been used by the Rusich Battalion a Russian militant group known for its operation during the war in Donbas 233 234 Flag of the American Nazi Party Logo of the National Socialist Movement U S Logo of the Russian National UnityWestern misinterpretation of Asian use Since the end of the 20th century and through the early 21st century confusion and controversy has occurred when personal use goods bearing the traditional Jain Buddhist or Hindu symbols have been exported to the West notably to North America and Europe and have been interpreted by purchasers as bearing a Nazi symbol This has resulted in several such products having been boycotted or pulled from shelves When a ten year old boy in Lynbrook New York bought a set of Pokemon cards imported from Japan in 1999 two of the cards contained the left facing Buddhist swastika The boy s parents misinterpreted the symbol as the right facing Nazi swastika and filed a complaint to the manufacturer Nintendo of America announced that the cards would be discontinued explaining that what was acceptable in one culture was not necessarily so in another their action was welcomed by the Anti Defamation League who recognised that there was no intention to offend but said that international commerce meant that Isolating the Swastika in Asia would just create more problems 26 In 2002 Christmas crackers containing plastic toy red pandas sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after complaints from customers in Canada The manufacturer based in China said the symbol was presented in a traditional sense and not as a reference to the Nazis and apologised to the customers for the cross cultural mixup 235 In 2020 the retailer Shein pulled a necklace featuring a left facing swastika pendant from its website after receiving backlash on social media The retailer apologized for the lack of sensitivity but noted that the swastika was a Buddhist symbol 236 New religious movements Besides its use as a religious symbol in Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism which can be traced back to pre modern traditions the swastika is also used by adherents of a large number of new religious movements which were established in the modern period Theosophy In the 1880s the U S origined Theosophical Society adopted a swastika as part of its seal along with an Om a hexagram or star of David an Ankh and an Ouroboros Unlike the much more recent Raelian movement the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy and the seal is still used The current seal also includes the text There is no religion higher than truth 237 Raelism The Raelian symbol with the swastika left and the alternative spiral version right The Raelian Movement whose adherents believe extraterrestrials created all life on earth use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy an interlaced star of David and a swastika The Raelians say the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in time no beginning and no end in time and everything being cyclic 238 In 1991 the symbol was changed in order to remove the swastika out of respect to the victims of the Holocaust but as of 2007 it has been restored to its original form 239 Ananda Marga The Tantra based new religious movement Ananda Marga Devanagari आनन द म र ग meaning Path of Bliss uses a motif similar to the Raelians but in their case the apparent star of David is defined as intersecting triangles with no specific reference to Jewish culture Falun Gong The Falun Gong qigong movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller and rounded ones interspersed with yin and yang symbols 240 Heathenry The swastika is a holy symbol in neopagan Germanic Heathenry along with the hammer of Thor and runes This tradition which is found in Scandinavia Germany and elsewhere considers the swastika to be derived from a Norse symbol for the sun Their use of the symbol has led people to accuse them of being a neo Nazi group 241 242 243 Baltic neopaganism A fire cross ugunskrusts is used by the Baltic neopaganism movements Dievturiba in Latvia and Romuva in Lithuania 244 Slavic Native Faith A variant of the swastika the non traditional eight armed kolovrat spinning wheel is the most commonly used religious symbol within neopagan Slavic Native Faith a k a Rodnovery 245 246 See also Hinduism portal India portal Religion portal Germany portal Asia portalBrigid s cross Cross woven from rushes arms offset Camunian rose Prehistoric symbol from the petroglyphs of Valcamonica Fasces Bound bundle of wooden rods sometimes including an axe with its blade emerging Fascist symbolism Use of certain images and symbols which are designed to represent aspects of fascism Flash and circle Symbol of the British Union of Fascists Fylfot Anglo Saxon symbol and swastika variation Nazi symbolism Symbols used by Nazis and neo Nazis Svastikasana Swastika curve Mathematical quartic curve Yoke and arrows Badge of Spanish monarchy fascist emblem Z military symbol sometimes called a zwastikaNotes In a broader sense swastika is a rosette with any number of rays bent in one direction 9 such as triskelion or arevakhach Except for religious useReferences a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Swastika Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Retrieved 22 May 2022 a b c Campion Mukti Jain 23 October 2014 How the world loved the swastika until Hitler stole it BBC News Magazine Retrieved 11 January 2022 a b Buxton David Roden 1947 The Christian Antiquities of Northern Ethiopia Archaeologia Society of Antiquaries of London 92 11 amp 23 doi 10 1017 S0261340900009863 a b Olson Jim The Swastika symbol in Native American Art Whispering Wind 48 no 3 2020 23 25 a b Bruce M Sullivan 2001 The A to Z of Hinduism Scarecrow Press p 216 ISBN 978 1 4616 7189 3 a b c d Adrian Snodgrass 1992 The Symbolism of the Stupa Motilal Banarsidass pp 82 83 ISBN 978 81 208 0781 5 a b Cort John E 2001 Jains in the World Religious Values and Ideology in India Oxford University Press p 17 ISBN 978 0195132342 a b c d Beer Robert 2003 The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols Serindia Publications Inc ISBN 978 1932476033 via Google Books page needed Svastika Swastika Bolshaya rossijskaya enciklopediya Great Russian Encyclopedia Online in Russian 2017 a b c The Migration of Symbols Index sacred texts com Press Cambridge University 2008 Cambridge Advanced Learner s Dictionary Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 3125179882 via Google Books Swastika Etymology Dictionary com Retrieved 8 June 2015 a b Art Silverblatt Nikolai Zlobin 2015 International Communications A Media Literacy Approach Routledge p 109 ISBN 978 1 317 46760 1 Buddha s footprints were said to be swastikas Pant Mohan Funo Shuji 2007 Stupa and Swastika Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal s Kathmandu Valley National University of Singapore Press p 231 with note 5 ISBN 978 9971 69 372 5 Greg Robert Philips 1884 On the Meaning and Origin of the Fylfot and Swastika Nichols and Sons pp 6 29 Faience button seal Faience button seal H99 3814 8756 01 with swastika motif found on the floor of Room 202 Trench 43 B nai B rith 1940 The National Jewish Monthly Volumes 55 56 p 181 Archived from the original on 28 July 2022 Retrieved 28 July 2022 Nicholas M Nagy Talavera Center for Romanian Studies 1998 Nicolae Iorga A Biography p 102 Archived from the original on 5 January 2023 Retrieved 28 July 2022 Ion C Butnaru Renee Spodheim Greenwood Publishing Group 1992 The Silent Holocaust Romania and Its Jews p 28 Archived from the original on 5 January 2023 Retrieved 28 July 2022 a b History of the Swastika Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2009 a b Wiener Richard L Richter Erin 2008 Symbolic hate Intention to intimidate political ideology and group association Law and Human Behavior American Psychological Association 32 6 463 476 doi 10 1007 s10979 007 9119 3 PMID 18030607 S2CID 25546323 Stollznow Karen 2020 On the Offensive Prejudice in Language Past and Present Cambridge University Press p 134 ISBN 978 1 108 49627 8 Langman Lauren Lundskow George 2016 God Guns Gold and Glory American Character and its Discontents Brill p 89 ISBN 978 90 04 32863 1 Lander Janis 2013 Spiritual Art and Art Education Routledge p 28 ISBN 978 1 134 66789 5 Wagoner Brady 2009 Symbolic Transformation The Mind in Movement Through Culture and Society Routledge p 13 ISBN 978 1 135 15090 7 a b c d Heller Steven 2008 The Swastika Symbol Beyond Redemption New York Allworth Press ISBN 978 1 58115 507 5 Zimmer Heinrich 2017 Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization Princeton University Press Allchin F R Erdosy George 1995 The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia The Emergence of Cities and States Cambridge University Press p 180 ISBN 978 0 521 37695 2 First recorded 1871 OED alternative historical English spellings include suastika swastica and svastica see for example Notes and Queries Oxford University Press 31 March 1883 p 259 Lorraine Boissoneault 6 April 2017 The Man Who Brought the Swastika to Germany and How the Nazis Stole It Archived 1 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine Smithsonian Magazine Harper Douglas 2016 Swastika Etymology Dictionary Mees 2008 pp 57 58 a b Heinrich Schliemann 1880 Ilios J Murray pp 347 348 a b c Monier Monier Williams 1899 A Sanskrit English Dictionary s v svastika Archived 4 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine p 1283 A Vedic Concordance Maurice Bloomfield Harvard University Press pp 1052 1054 Page Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1 djvu 494 Wikisource the free online library en wikisource org Retrieved 10 June 2019 Staal Frits April 1965 Euclid and Paṇini Philosophy East and West 15 2 99 116 doi 10 2307 1397332 JSTOR 1397332 Cardona George 1998 Paṇini A Survey of Research Motilal Banarsidass p 268 ISBN 978 81 208 1494 3 via Google Books Panini Indian Grammarian Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013 Scharfe Hartmut 1977 Grammatical Literature Otto Harrassowitz Verlag pp 88 89 ISBN 978 3 447 01706 0 via Google Books Graves Charles April 1879 On the Croix Gammee or Swastika The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy Royal Irish Academy 27 41 46 Read by Graves to the Royal Irish Academy on 13 May 1878 Thomas Edward 1880 The Indian Swastika and Its Western Counterparts Numismatic Chronicle Royal Numismatic Society 20 18 48 Sewell Robert 1881 Notes on the Swastika The Indian Antiquary 9 65 73 The Migration of Symbols Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine by Eugene Goblet d Alviella 1894 p 40 at sacred texts com tetraskelion Merriam Webster Dictionary Online ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc Retrieved 9 February 2019 Melissa Cody s Whirling Logs Don t You Dare Call Them Swastikas Indian Country Today Media Network 7 August 2013 Archived from the original on 11 August 2013 Powers John 2007 Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism Shambhala Press p 509 ISBN 978 1 55939 835 0 via Google Books Chessa Luciano 2012 Luigi Russolo Futurist Noise Visual Arts and the Occult University of California Press p 34 ISBN 978 0 520 95156 3 via Google Books Swastika Flag Specifications and Construction Sheet Germany Archived 8 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine Flags of the World CJK Unified Ideographs PDF Archived PDF from the original on 16 September 2003 4 83 MB The Unicode Standard Version 4 1 Unicode Inc 2005 Big5 C9 C3 according to Wenlin Big5 85 80 according to Wenlin Right Facing Svasti Sign Archived 22 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine click next three times Paliga S The tablets of Tǎrtǎria Dialogues d histoire ancienne vol 19 n 1 1993 pp 9 43 Fig 5 on p 28 Archived 6 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine Freed S A and R S Origin of the Swastika Natural History January 1980 68 75 Guenon Rene Fohr Samuel D 2004 Symbols of Sacred Science Sophia Perennis pp 64 67 113 117 ISBN 978 0900588785 Guenon Rene Fohr Samuel D 2004 Symbols of Sacred Science Sophia Perennis pp 113 117 130 ISBN 978 0900588785 Assasi Reza 2013 Swastika The Forgotten Constellation Representing the Chariot of Mithras Anthropological Notebooks Supplement Sprajc Ivan Pehani Peter eds Ancient Cosmologies and Modern Prophets Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture Ljubljana Slovene Anthropological Society XIX 2 ISSN 1408 032X a b Gennady Zdanovich O mirovozzrenii drevnih zhitelej Strany Gorodov Archived 25 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine Russkij sled 26 June 2017 Guenon Rene Fohr Samuel D 2004 Symbols of Sacred Science Sophia Perennis p 117 ISBN 978 0900588785 Sagan Carl Druyan Ann 1985 Comet 1st ed New York Random House pp 181 187 ISBN 0 394 54908 2 OCLC 12080683 a b Kobres Bob Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse Archived from the original on 8 September 2009 Hewitt J F 1907 Primitive Traditional History The Primitive History and Chronology of India South eastern and South western Asia Egypt and Europe and the Colonies Thence Sent Forth Vol 1 Oxford J Parker and Company p 145 Good Housekeeping Vol 47 C W Bryan amp Company 1908 Frank Hamilton Cushing Observations Relative to the Origin of the Fylfot or Swastika American Anthropologist vol 9 no 2 June 1907 p 335 Archived 20 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine at JSTOR Campbell Joseph 2002 The Flight of the Wild Gander p 117 Campion Mukti Jain 23 October 2014 How the world loved the swastika until Hitler stole it BBC News Retrieved 14 February 2017 Persian Sea magazine 2014 The global role of the swastika in Iranian treasures idols and carpets Archived 6 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine Iranian Studies Accessed 19 April 2021 In Persian کتیبه های خوسف ولاخ مزار بیرجند جک گویی پارتها Parthians Joking یا کتیبه های درست دینان سلطنت قباد Civilica in Persian 25 September 1395 Retrieved 18 February 2022 Dimitrova Stefania 30 January 1996 Eight Thousand Years Ago Proto Thracians Depicted the Evolution of the Divine English Courrier of UNESCO via www academia edu a b Kathleen M Nadeau 2010 Lee Jonathan H X ed Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife ABL CLIO p 87 ISBN 978 0 313 35066 5 Retrieved 21 March 2011 Staff ndg Researchers find the Swastika predates the Indus Valley Civilization Archived 16 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine Ancient Code citing lead project investigator Joy Sen from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Dunham Dows A Collection of Pot Marks from Kush and Nubia Kush 13 131 147 1965 in Chinese Bao Jing 卍 与 卐 漫议 卍 and 卐 Man Yee 6 January 2004 news xinhuanet com Jar with swastika design Majiayao culture Machang type Gansu or Qinghai province Archived 9 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine Daghlian Collection of Chinese Art Stipcevic Aleksandar 1977 The Illyrians history and culture Noyes Press ISBN 978 0815550525 Retrieved 14 February 2017 via Google Books Textile fragment V amp A Museum Retrieved 14 September 2017 a term coined by Anna Roes Tierwirbel IPEK 1936 1937 Marija Gimbutas The Balts before the Dawn of History Vaidilute com Archived from the original on 10 January 2012 Claude Levi Strauss Structural Anthropology 1959 p 267 Tokhatyan K S Rock Carvings of Armenia Fundamental Armenology v 2 2015 pp 1 22 Institute of History of NAS RA Freed Stanley A Research Pitfalls as a Result of the Restoration of Museum Specimens Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Volume 376 The Research Potential of Anthropological Museum Collections pp 229 245 December 1981 Dutta Rita 1 December 2010 Swastika Symbol on Bharhut Stone Railing A Case Study Ancient Asia 2 147 154 doi 10 5334 aa 10211 ISSN 2042 5937 Mohan Pant Shuji Funo 2007 Stupa and Swastika Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal s Kathmandu Valley NUS Press p 16 ISBN 978 9971693725 Dictionary Definition of swastika Archived from the original on 19 April 2013 Druid Morning Star Athbhreith Athbheochan Kwisatz Haderach A symbol is a thought a drawing an action an archetype etcetera of the conceptualization of a thing that exists either in reality or in the imagination Archived from the original on 5 February 2012 Retrieved 17 February 2012 a b Janis Lander 2013 Spiritual Art and Art Education Routledge pp 27 28 ISBN 978 1 134 66789 5 Significance of Swastika in Diwali celebrations indiatribune com 27 October 2010 Retrieved 11 November 2018 Norman C McClelland 2010 Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma McFarland pp 263 264 ISBN 978 0 7864 5675 8 Chris Buckley 2005 Tibetan Furniture Sambhala pp 5 59 68 70 ISBN 978 1 891640 20 9 a b c Symbols USC Pacific Asia Museum pacificasiamuseum usc edu Retrieved 23 May 2022 Chinese Symbols USC Pacific Asia Museum pacificasiamuseum usc edu Retrieved 22 May 2022 a b c d e Dusenberry Mary M 2004 Flowers dragons and pine trees Asian textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art Carol Bier Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art 1st ed New York Hudson Hills Press ISBN 1 55595 238 0 OCLC 55016186 Kangxi Emperor 1716 Kangxi Dictionary in Traditional Chinese Qing Empire p 156 Japanese Hitoshi Takazawa Encyclopedia of Kamon Tōkyōdō Shuppan 2008 ISBN 978 4 490 10738 8 Sayagata 紗綾形 Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System Archived 4 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine a b c Concise Armenian Encyclopedia Yerevan v II p 663 T Wilson The swastika the earlist known symbol and its migrations pp 807 951 Holding Nicholas Holding Deirdre 2011 Armenia p 148 ISBN 978 1841623450 a b Debirov Paruk M 1966 Rezba po kamnyu v Dagestane Stone carving in Dagestan in Russian Moscow Nauka Vakhushti of Kartli Description of the Kingdom of Georgia a b Plaetschke Bruno 1929 Die Tschetschenen Forschungen zur Volkerkunde des nordostlichen Kaukasus auf Grund von Reisen in den Jahren 1918 20 und 1927 28 The Chechens Veroffentlichungen des Geographischen Instituts der Universitat Konigsberg Pr 11 in German Hamburg Friedrichsen de Gruyter amp Co m b H Margrethe Queen Poul Kjrum Rikke Agnete Olsen 1990 Oldtidens Ansigt Faces of the Past p 148 ISBN 978 87 7468 274 5 a b c d e H R Ellis Davidson 1965 Gods and Myths of Northern Europe p 83 ISBN 978 0 14 013627 2 The Battersea Shield British Museum Archived from the original on 24 March 2007 CISP entry Ucl ac uk Retrieved 2 March 2010 Martin J Powell Megalithic Sites in England Photo Archive Dominguez Fontela J 1938 Ceramica de Santa Tecla Un hallazgo importantisimo Archived 23 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine in Faro de Vigo Romero Bieito 2009 Xeometrias Maxicas de Galicia Ir Indo Vigo Grzegorzewic Ziemislaw 2016 O Bogach i ludziach Praktyka i teoria Rodzimowierstwa Slowianskiego About the Gods and people Practice and theory of Slavic Heathenism in Polish Olsztyn Stowarzyszenie Kolomir p 57 ISBN 978 83 940180 8 5 a b Guenon Rene 2001 The Symbolism of the Cross Sophia Perennis p 62 ISBN 978 0900588655 Latvia and the Swastika latvians com Retrieved 8 November 2018 Praslowianskie motywy architektoniczne 1923 Retrieved 19 May 2014 Gajl Tadeusz 2007 Polish Armorial Middle Ages to 20th Century Gdansk L amp L ISBN 978 83 60597 10 1 via Gajl wielcy pl a b Kuftin Boris A 1926 Materialnaya kultura Russkoj Meshery Ch 1 Zhenskaya odezhda rubaha poneva sarafan Material culture of Russian Meshchera Part 1 Women s clothing shirt poniova sarafan Proceedings of the State Museum of the Central Industrial Region 3 in Russian Moscow pp 62 64 OCLC 490308640 Trubachyov Oleg ed 1983 Kolovort kolovrt PDF Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages in Russian Vol 10 Moscow Nauka pp 149 150 Archived PDF from the original on 24 February 2014 Bagdasarov Roman Svastika blagoslovenie ili proklyatie Cena Pobedy Echo of Moscow Archived from the original on 10 July 2012 Retrieved 7 April 2010 A 2008 interview with historian Roman Bagdasarov Bagdasarov states that for some reason Russian people think that kolovrat is the ancient name of the swastika But this is absolutely not the case According to ethnographic records when I went on expeditions and so on the swastika for example was called veterok breeze Bagdasarov R V 2002 2001 Russkie imena svastiki Svastika svyashennyj simvol Etnoreligiovedcheskie ocherki in Russian 2nd ed Moscow Belye Alvy ISBN 978 5 7619 0164 3 Ivanits Linda J 1989 Russian Folk Belief M E Sharpe pp 14 17 ISBN 9780765630889 Garshol Lars Marius 2021 Olav s Rose Perun s Mark Taranis s Wheel Peregrinations Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture 7 4 121 151 Biers W R 1996 The Archaeology of Greece p 130 Cornell University Press Ithaca London Perseus image 1990 26 0822 Perseus tufts edu 26 February 1990 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Robert Ferre Amiens Cathedral Archived 7 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine Labyrinth Enterprises Constructed from 1220 to 1402 Amiens Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in France a popular tourist attraction and since 1981 a UNESCO World Heritage Site During World War I Amiens was targeted by German forces but remained in Allied territory following the Battle of Amiens Gary Malkin Tockington Park Roman VillaArchived 21 May 2004 at the Wayback Machine The Area of Bristol in Roman Times 9 December 2002 Lara Nagy Jane Vadnal Glossary Medieval Art and Architecture Greek key or meander Archived 20 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine University of Pittsburgh 1997 1998 Stipcevic Aleksandar 1977 The Illyrians history and culture Noyes Press pp 182 186 ISBN 978 0815550525 Jacob G Ghazarian 2006 The Mediterranean legacy in early Celtic Christianity a journey from Armenia to Ireland Archived 5 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine Bennett amp Bloom pp 263 p 171 Quite a different version of the Celtic triskelion and perhaps the most common pre Christian symbolism found throughout Armenian cultural tradition is the round clockwise occasionally counter clockwise whirling sun like spiral fixed at a centre the Armenian symbol of eternity K B Mehr M Markow Mormon Missionaries enter Eastern Europe Brigham Young University Press 2002 pp 399 p 252 She viewed a tall building with spires and circular windows along the top of the walls It was engraved with sun stones a typical symbol of eternity in ancient Armenian architecture Stipcevic Aleksandar 1977 The Illyrians history and culture Noyes Press ISBN 978 0815550525 Carus Paul 1907 The Open Court Open Court Publishing Company Swastika Kolovrat Historical Roots in Russian Distedu ru Archived from the original on 31 August 2009 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Vladimir Nikolaevich The Swastika the historical roots in Russian Klk pp ru Archived from the original on 22 August 2009 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Vladimir Plakhotnyuk Kolovrat Historical Roots Collection of articles in Russian Ruskolan xpomo com Archived from the original on 19 April 2009 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Claire Polakoff Into Indigo African Textiles and Dyeing Techniques 1980 Salt Lake City Tribune Archived from the original on 24 March 2022 Retrieved 24 March 2022 Brown Jerome F ANTI SEMITISM ON CAMPUS THE SWASTIKA OF NMSU Shofar 1986 22 32 Heller Steven The swastika symbol beyond redemption Simon and Schuster 2010 Warnick Ron 26 October 2006 Swastikas on old Arizona road maps Route 66 News Retrieved 5 September 2019 Schliemann H Troy and its remains London Murray 1875 pp 102 119 120 Boxer Sarah 29 June 2000 One of the World s Great Symbols Strives for a Comeback Think Tank The New York Times Retrieved 7 May 2012 Holocaust Chronology Archived 1 August 2012 at archive today Crampton William 1990 The World of Flags Studio Additions pp 154 155 ISBN 1851704264 Flickr Album Probably the Best Photo s of Swastikas in the World Fiveprime org Archived from the original on 10 July 2012 Retrieved 1 May 2011 Carlsberg Group Website Archived from the original on 4 August 2020 Saga Eimskips Eimskip Archived from the original on 21 August 2018 Retrieved 19 June 2019 Swastika chimney The Irish Times 3 March 2007 Archived from the original on 20 May 2011 Retrieved 3 October 2010 Swastika Laundry 1912 1987 Come here to me Comeheretome wordpress com 26 April 2010 Retrieved 3 October 2010 Partiolippukunta Pitkajarven Vaeltajat ry Pitva Partio net Retrieved 2 March 2010 Kainuun Kerho 18 September 2009 Kainuun Kerho PPO Osakunta fi Archived from the original on 5 October 2009 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Tursan Sydan Tursa fi in Finnish 2007 Archived from the original on 3 October 2009 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Allen Claudia 1 July 2020 Finland s air force quietly drops swastika symbol BBC News Retrieved 2 July 2020 Flag Archived 20 July 2011 at archive today The President of the Republic Of Finland Campaign site rautasormus fi campaign now closed Rautasormus fi Archived from the original on 21 December 2007 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Finland s air force quietly drops swastika symbol BBC News 1 July 2020 Retrieved 3 July 2020 Latvia Airforce Flag and Aircraft Marking fotw info Retrieved 8 November 2018 Lumans Valdis O 2006 Latvia in World War II Fordham Univ Press p 39 ISBN 978 0823226276 Latvian Air Force 1918 1940 Archived 17 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 30 September 2008 Sparnota Latvija Archived 4 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 30 September 2008 Nozime Apvienota Kara skola 1938 gada izlaidums Nr 937 sudrabs Latvija 20 gs 20 30ie gadi 44 3 x 34 2 mm 15 60 g darbnica V F Millers Vitber in Latvian Retrieved 8 November 2018 Latvijas armijas Nacionalo Brunoto Speku un citu iestazu karogi latvianmilitaryhistory in Latvian 1 October 2012 Retrieved 8 November 2018 Exhibition The Lacplesis Military Order National History Museum of Latvia lnvm lv Retrieved 8 November 2018 Swastika historical heritage of Lithuania European Foundation of Human Rights 3 February 2012 Retrieved 8 November 2018 Svastika Musu proteviu lietuviu simbolis Sarmatai www sarmatas lt in Lithuanian 7 February 2010 Retrieved 8 November 2018 a b Svastika Musu proteviu lietuviu simbolis Swastika Is the Symbol of Our Ancestors Lithuanians in Lithuanian sarmatas lt 7 February 2010 Sorensen Oystein 1989 Fra Hitler til Quisling Oslo J W Cappelens Forlag pp 93 94 ISBN 82 02 11992 8 Knut Are Tvedt ed 2010 Oslo Byleksikon Kunnskapsforlaget Entry Sommerrogata p 527 Rollin Henri 1939 L Apocalypse de notre temps in French Paris Gallimard pp 61 62 Gilliard Pierre 1923 Thirteen Years at the Russian Court Online open source via Alexanderpalace org Russkie bumazhnye dengi cenu denezhnyh znakov Rossii mestnyh i chastnyh denezhnyh znakov bony i valyuty Russian paper money price list of Russia banknotes currency local and private banknotes atsnotes com in Russian Nikolaiev R Sovetskie kreditki so svastikoj Soviet credit cards with a swastika bonistikaweb ru in Russian Retrieved 20 May 2022 Tsvetkov Vasily 2015 R F Ungern i popytki organizacii centra antibolshevistskogo soprotivleniya v Mongolii 1918 1921 gody 1 ya chast R F Ungern and attempts to organize a center of anti Bolshevik resistance in Mongolia 1918 1921 Part 1 Novyj istoricheskij vestnik New Historical Bulletin in Russian 45 3 145 172 Prikaz vojskam Yugo Vostochnogo fronta ot 03 11 1919 213 Order to the troops of the South Eastern Front dated 11 03 1919 No 213 ru wikisource org in Russian Dottie Indyke The History of an Ancient Human Symbol Archived 5 December 2004 at the Wayback Machine 4 April 2005 originally from The Wingspread Collector s Guide to Santa Fe Taos and Albuquerque Volume 15 Photo and text Why is there a Swastika on the saddle in the First Nations Gallery Archived 18 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine Royal Saskatchewan Museum History of the Swastika United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Retrieved 9 May 2018 A Aleksandra 18 March 2018 Planted in 1933 this mysterious forest swastika remained unnoticed until 1992 it was then quickly cut down Thevintagenews The Vintage News Retrieved 10 September 2018 Der Flaggenkurier Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Flaggenkunde in German Achim und Berlin 16 2002 bis 30 2009 ISSN 0949 6173 The Flag Courier Journal of the German Society for Flags Jose Manuel Erbez Order of the New Templars 1907 Archived 8 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine Flags of the World 21 January 2001 Goodrick Clarke Nicholas Graz 1997 S 98 and 2006 S 93 f Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus The occult roots of National Socialism in German Wiesbaden Marix Verl ISBN 9783937715483 OCLC 76560810 text of Mein Kampf at Project Gutenberg of Australia Gutenberg net au Retrieved 2 March 2010 Walther Blachetta Das Buch der deutschen Sinnzeichen The book of German sense characters reprint of 1941 p 47 Robert Proctor 1988 Racial Hygiene Medicine Under the Nazis Harvard University Press p 220 ISBN 978 0674745780 Mark B Adams 1990 The Wellborn Science Eugenics in Germany France Brazil and Russia Eugenics in Germany France Brazil and Russia Oxford University Press p 43 ISBN 978 0195363838 James Q Whitman Hitler s American Model The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Princeton Princeton University Press 2017 p 28 Prynne Miranda 14 April 2014 Battle of Britain hero s medals to go under the hammer Archived from the original on 14 April 2018 Retrieved 6 April 2018 via www telegraph co uk Verhulsdonck Gustav 2013 Digital Rhetoric and Global Literacies IGI p 94 ISBN 978 1 4666 4917 0 Dawn Perlmutter 2003 Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes CRC Press p 242 ISBN 978 1 4200 4104 0 Germany Won t Seek EU Wide Ban on Swastikas Deutsche Welle 29 January 2007 Stuttgart Seeks to Ban Anti Fascist Symbols Le Journal Chretien Spcm org Archived from the original on 20 April 2008 Retrieved 2 March 2010 in German Tageblatt Archived 13 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine 23 September 2006 3 StR 486 06 PDF Federal Court of Justice of Germany Retrieved 2 March 2010 Bundesgerichtshof press statement No 36 2007 Federal Court of Justice of Germany 15 March 2007 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Anti Nazi Symbole sind nicht strafbar Anti Nazi symbols are not forbidden Der Spiegel in German 15 March 2007 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Germany Lifts Ban on Nazi Symbols in Video Games The Telegraph 9 August 2018 Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Chalk Andy 9 August 2018 Germany Lifts Ban on Swastikas in Videogames PC Gamer a b Hungary hammer and sickle ban declared illegal ANSA 27 February 2013 Retrieved 12 November 2013 Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code Section 335 Use of Symbols of Totalitarianism PDF Ministry of Interior of Hungary p 97 Archived PDF from the original on 22 February 2017 Retrieved 21 February 2017 Any person who a distributes b uses before the public at large or c publicly exhibits the swastika the insignia of the SS the arrow cross the sickle and hammer the five pointed red star or any symbol depicting the above so as to breach public peace specifically in a way to offend the dignity of victims of totalitarian regimes and their right to sanctity is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by custodial arrest insofar as it did not result in a more serious criminal offense Latvia Bans Nazi Soviet Symbols at Public Events Haaretz 20 June 2013 Retrieved 8 November 2018 Latvian bill would ban Soviet Nazi symbols UPI 21 June 2013 Retrieved 8 November 2018 lvportals lv 7 May 2013 Ka aizliegt to kas jau ir aizliegts in Latvian Retrieved 8 November 2018 Stemple Hillary 20 May 2010 Lithuania court rules swastikas are part of historic legacy JURIST Day Matthew 23 April 2009 Poland to ban Che Guevara image Archived 14 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine The Daily Telegraph a b Ethan McNern Swastika ban left out of EU s racism law Archived 5 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine The Scotsman 30 January 2007 Staff Hindus opposing EU swastika ban Archived 19 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine BBC online 17 January 2007 Staff source dgs Reuters Hindus Against Proposed EU Swastika Ban Archived 29 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine Der Spiegel online 17 January 2007 Brazilian Federal Statute 7 716 Archived 15 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine 1989 05 01 Portuguese Panama Native Peoples Archived 30 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine from Flags of the World Retrieved 20 February 2006 Shuster Simon 14 August 2017 How the Nazi Flags in Charlottesville Look to a German Time Retrieved 15 August 2017 Schofield Matthew 30 July 2015 How Germany dealt with its symbols of hate mcclatchydc com McClatchy DC Bureau Retrieved 18 August 2017 It s notable that when Ku Klux Klan members recently rallied in South Carolina they carried both the battle flag and the Nazi swastika The two flags in recent years have been commonly seen together at white supremacist groups and gatherings Dickter Adam Lipman Steve Savage Nigel 1 June 2010 ADL Downgrades Swastika As Jewish Hate Symbol Jewish Week Retrieved 23 April 2020 Swastika Anti Defamation League Retrieved 31 July 2020 Swastika Victoria bans display of Nazi symbol in Australian first BBC News 22 June 2022 Retrieved 22 June 2022 Goldman Tom 23 November 2010 Black Ops Swastika Emblems Will Earn Xbox Live Ban escapistmagazine com Archived from the original on 23 November 2010 Telotte Jay P 2008 The Mouse Machine Disney and Technology p 201 ISBN 978 0252092633 OCLC 811409076 Campion Mukti Jain 23 October 2014 How the world loved the swastika until Hitler stole it BBC News Retrieved 15 February 2022 Swastika General Hate Symbols Neo Nazi Symbols www adl org Anti Defamation League Retrieved 15 February 2022 Winston Nama 28 April 2017 Swastikas Are Less Racist Than Racists Think www huffpost com Huffington Post Retrieved 15 February 2022 Ramirez Marc Is the swastika a symbol of hate or peaceful icon Faith groups try to save reviled emblem www usatoday com USA Today Retrieved 16 September 2022 Teitel Emma 11 February 2022 Truck protest teaches timely lessons about the current face of antisemitism www thestar com Toronto Star Retrieved 15 February 2022 Heller Steven 9 March 2021 The Daily Heller Anti Hate Symbol Law Will Foster More Hate www printmag com Print Magazine Retrieved 17 February 2022 Saidazimova Gulnoza 23 December 2005 Tajikistan Officials Say Swastika Part Of Their Aryan Heritage Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty c 2008 Rferl org Retrieved 2 March 2010 John Powers 2007 Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism Shambhala pp 508 509 ISBN 978 1 55939 835 0 a b c Jonathan H X Lee Kathleen M Nadeau 2011 Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife ABC CLIO pp 86 87 ISBN 978 0 313 35066 5 Stephan Feuchtwang ed 2020 Handbook on Religion in China Edward Elgar Publishing pp 36 194 203 ISBN 9781786437969 平成１４年２万５千分１地形図図式 2002 1 25000 Topographical Map Scheme in Japanese Geospatial Information Authority of Japan Archived from the original on 19 April 2012 Retrieved 21 April 2012 a b Japan to remove swastikas from maps as tourists think they are Nazi symbols www telegraph co uk Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Retrieved 29 September 2021 a b Buddhist Manji Removed from Crunchyroll s Release of Tokyo Revengers CBR 21 July 2021 Retrieved 29 September 2021 daily picture News from Nepal as it happens Nepalnews com Archived from the original on 25 January 2021 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Frederick J Simonelli 1995 The American Nazi Party 1958 1967 Archived 27 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine The Historian Vol 57 No 3 Spring 1995 pp 553 566 Carnes Jim 1999 Responding to Hate at School A Guide for Teachers Counselors and Administrators Archived 24 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine ERIC Department of Education US Government pp 9 11 33 49 50 Vyacheslav Lihachev Nacizm v Rossii s 5 Archived 26 October 2008 at Archive It about symbolic of neo nazi party RNU Mudde Cas ed 2005 Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe Routledge studies in extremism and democracy London Routledge p 61 ISBN 978 0415355933 Somnitelnaya simvolika v lagere Azovec zachem vyglyadet kak storonniki DNR Doubtful symbols in the Azovets camp why look like DNR supporters www theinsider ua in Ukrainian Likhachev Vyacheslav July 2016 The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine PDF Russie NEI Visions in English pp 18 26 Archived PDF from the original on 26 October 2016 CBC News 30 December 2002 Toy pandas bearing swastikas a cultural mix up Lewis Sophie 10 July 2020 Popular online retailer Shein apologizes for selling swastika necklace after backlash CBS News CBS Archived from the original on 9 August 2020 Retrieved 27 June 2021 Emblem or the Seal TS Adyar www ts adyar org Pro Swastika Pro Swastika Retrieved 2 March 2010 The Official Raelian Symbol gets its swastika back Raelianews 17 January 2007 Retrieved 2 March 2010 Daniel Rancour Laferriere 2017 The Sign of the Cross From Golgotha to Genocide Routledge p 167 ISBN 978 1351474214 Marijke Gijswijt Hofstra Brian P Levack Roy Porter 1999 Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Volume 6 The Twentieth Century Bloomsbury Academic pp 111 114 ISBN 978 0 485 89105 8 Stefanie von Schnurbein 2016 Norse Revival Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism Brill Academic ISBN 978 90 04 29435 6 Mees 2008 pp 141 193 194 210 211 226 227 Kak Subhash 9 July 2018 Romuva and the Vedic Gods of Lithuania Subhash Kak Retrieved 8 November 2018 Shnirelman Victor A 2000 Perun Svarog and Others Russian Neo Paganism in Search of Itself The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 21 3 25 JSTOR 23818709 Pilkington Hilary Popov Anton 2009 Understanding Neo paganism in Russia Religion Ideology Philosophy Fantasy In George McKay ed Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East Central Europe Peter Lang p 282 ISBN 978 3039119219 Mees Bernard 2008 The Science of the Swastika Budapest Central European University Press ISBN 978 9639776180 Further reading Wikimedia Commons has media related to Swastika category Look up 卐 or swastika in Wiktionary the free dictionary Quotations related to Swastika at Wikiquote Quinn Malcolm 2005 The Swastika Constructing the Symbol Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 85495 0 History of the Swastika US Holocaust Memorial Museum The Origins of the Swastika BBC News McKay George Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East Central Europe p 282 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Swastika amp oldid 1134514217, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.