The Swastika
Definitions, Description & Origin
As far as I have been able to trace or connect the various manifestations of this emblem [the Swastika], they one and all resolve themselves into the primitive conception of solar motions, which was intuitively associated with the rolling or wheel-like projection of the sun through the upper or visible area of the heavens, as understood and accepted in the crude astronomy of the ancients. The earliest phase of astronomical science we are at present in the position to refer to, with the still extent aid of indigenous diagrams, is the Chaldean. The representation of the sun in this system commences with a simple ring or outline circle, which is speedily advanced toward the impression of onward revolving motion by the insertion of a cross or four wheel-like spokes within the circumference of the normal ring. As the original Chaldean emblem of the sun was typified by a single ring, so the Indian mind adopted a similar definition, which remains to this day as the ostensible device or east-mark of the modern Sauras or sun worshipers.
The same remarks are made in "Ilios" (pp. 353, 354). The author will not presume to question, much less deny, the facts stated by this learned gentleman, but it is to be remarked that, on the theory of presumption, the circle might represent many other things than the sun, and unless the evidence in favor of the foregoing statement is susceptible of verification, the theory can hardly be accepted as conclusive. Why should not the circle represent other things than the sun? In modern astronomy the full moon is represented by the plain circle, while the sun, at least in heraldry is always represented as a circle with rays. It is believed that the "cross or four wheel like spokes" in the Chaldean emblem of the sun will be found to be rays rather that cross or spokes. A cast is in the U.S. National Museum (Cat. No. 154766) of an original specimen from Niffer, now in the Royal Museum, Berlin, of Shamash, the Assyrian god of the sun. He is represented on this monument by a solar disk, 4 inches in diameter, with eight rays similar to those of stars, their bases on a faint circle at the center, and tapering outwards to a point, the whole surrounded by another faint circle. This is evidence that the sun symbol of Assyria required rays as well as a circle. A similar representation of the sun god is found on a tablet discovered in the temple of the Sun God at Abu-Habba.(2)
Perrot and Chipiez (3) show a tablet from Sippara, of a king, Nabuabal-iddin, 900 B.C., doing homage to the sun god (identified by the inscription), who is represented by bas-relief of a small circle in the center, with rays and lightning zigzags extending to an outer circle.
In view of these authorities and others which might be cited, it is questionable whether the plain circle was continuously a representation of the sun in the Chaldean or Assyrian astronomy.
It is also doubtful whether, if the circle did represent the sun, the insertion of the cross of the four wheel-like spokes necessarily gave the impression of "onward revolving motion;" or whether any or all of the foregoing afford a satisfactory basis for the origin of the Swastika or fot its relation to, or representation of, the sun or the sun god.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter (4) announces as his opinion that the Swastika in Cyprus had nearly always a signification more or less religious and sacred, though it may have been used as an ornament to fill empty spaces. He attributes to the Croix swasticale – or, as he calls it, Croix cantonée-- the equivalence of the solar disk, zigzag lightning, and double hatchet; while to the Swastika proper he attributes the signification of rain, storm, lightning, sun, light, seasons, and also that it lends itself easily to the solar disk, the fire wheel, and the sun chariot.
Greg (5) says:
Considered finally, it may be asked if the fylfot or gammadion was an early symbol of the sun, or, if only an emblem of the solar revolutions or movements across the heavens, why it was drawn square rather than curved: The (fig. j),
even if used in a solar sense, must have implied something more than,
or something distinct from , the sun, who’s proper and almost universal
symbol was the circle. It was evidently more connected with the cross
(fig. h)
than
with the circle (fig. i)
or solar disk.Dr. Brinton (6) considers the Swastika as derived from the cross rather than from the circle, and the author agrees that this is probable, although it may be impossible of demonstration either way.
Several authors, among the rest d'Alviella, Greg, and Thomas, have announced the theory of the evolution of the Swastika, beginning with the Triskelion, thence to the tetraskelioin, and so to the Swastika. A slight examination is sufficient to overturn this hypothesis. In the first place, the triskelion, which is the foundation of this hypotheses, made its first appearance on the coins of Lyeia. But this appearance was within what is called the first period of coinage, to wit, between 700 and 480 BC, and it did not become settled until the second, and even the third period, 280 to 240 BC, when it migrated to Sicily. But the Swastika had already appeared in Armenia, on the hill of Hissarlik, in the terramares of northern Italy, and on the hut-urns of southern Italy many hundred, possibly a thousand or more, years prior to that time. Count d'Alviella, in his plate 3 (see Chart I, p. 794), assigns it ti a period of the fourteenth or thirteenth century BC, with an unknown and indefinite past behind it. It is impossible that a symbol which first appeared in 480 BC could have been the ancestor of one which appeared in 1400 or 1300 BC, nearly a thousand years before.
ENDNOTES:
1 London, 1880. [Back]
2 Rawlinson, "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia," v, pl. 60; Trans. Soc. Biblical Archæology, viii, p. 165. [Back]
3 "History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria," i, p. 20, fig. 71.[Back]
4 Bull. Soc. d'Anthrop., paris, 1888, pp. 674, 675. [Back]
5 Archaeologia, xlviii, pt. 2, p. 326. [Back]
6 Proc. Amer. Philosoph. Soc., 1889, xxix, p. 180. [Back]
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