The Swastika
Definitions, Description & Origin
Mr. Greg's paper is of great elaboration, and highly complicated. he devotes an entire page or plate 21 to a chart showing the older Aryan fire, water, and sun gods, according to the Brahmin or Buddhist system. The earliest was Dyaus, the bright sky or the air god; Adyti, the infinite expanse, mother of bright gods; Varuna, the covering of the shining firmament. Out of this trinity came another, Zeus, being the descendant of Dyaus, the sky god; Agni, the fire; Sulya, the sun, and Indra, the rain god. These in their turn formed the great Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva -- creator, preserver, and destroyer; and, in his opnion, the Swastika was the symbol or ordinary device of Indra as well as of Zeus. He continues his table of descent from these gods, with their accompanying devices, to the sun, lightning, fire, and water, and makes almost a complete scheme of the mythology of that period, into which it is not possible to follow him. However, he declines to accept the theory of Max Müller of any difference of form or meaning between the Suavastika and the Swastika because the ends or arms turned to the right or to the left, and he thinks the two symbols to be substantially the same. He considers it to have been, in the first instance, exclusively of early Aryan origine and use, and that down to about 600 B.C. it was the emblem or symbol of the supreme Aryan god; that it so continued down through the various steps of descent (according to the chart mentioned) until it became the device and symbol of Brahma, and finally of Buddha. He thinks that it may have been the origine of the Greek fret or meander pattern. Later still it was adopted even by the early Christians as a suitable variety of their cross, and became variously modified in form and was used as a charm.
D'Alviella (2) expresses his doubts concerning the theory advanced by Greg (3) to the effect that the Swastika is to be interpreted as a symbol of the air or of the god who dwells in the air, operating sometimes to produce light, other times rain, then water, and so on , as is represented by the god Indra among the Hindus, Thor among the Germans and Scandinavians, Perkun among the Slavs, Zeus among the Pelasig and Greeks, Jupiter Tonans, and Plavius among the Latins.
He disputes the theory that the association of the Swastika sign with various others on the same object proves its relationship with that object or sign. That it appears on vases or similar objects associated with what is evidently a solar disk is no evidence to him that the Swastika belongs to the sun, or when associated with the zigzags of lightning that it represents the god of lightning, nor the same with the god of heaven. The fact of its appearing either above or below any one of these is, in his opinion, of no importance and has no signification, either general or special.
D'Alviella says (4) that the only example known to him of a Swastika upon a monument consecrated to Zeus or Jupiter is on a Celto-Roman altar, erected, according to all appearances, by the Daci during the time they were garrisoned at Ambloganna, in Britain. The altar bears the letters I.O.M., which have been thought to stand of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Swastika theron is flanked by two disks or ronelles, representative of the sun among the Gaulois. (5)
Dr. Brinton (6) considers the Swastika as being related to the cross and not the circle, and asserts that the Ta Ki or Triskeles, the Swastika and the Cross, were originally of the same signification, or at least closely allied in meaning.
Waring, (7) after citing his authorities, sums up his opinion thus:
We have given remarks of the various writers on this symbol, and it will be seen that, though they are more or less vague, uncertain, and confused in their description of it, still, with one exception they all agree that it is a mystic symbol, peculiar to some deity or other, bearing a special signification, and generally believed to have some connection with one of the elements -- water.
Burton says: (8)
The Svastika is apparently the simplest from of the Guiloche [scroll pattern or spiral]. According to Wilkinson (11, Chap. IX), the most complicated from of the Guilloche covered an Egyptian ceiling upward of a thousand years older than the objects found at Nineveh. The Svastika spread far and wide, everywhere assuming some fresh mythological and mysterious significance. In the north of Europe it became the Fylfot or Crutched cross.
Count Goblet d'Alviella is of the opinion (p. 57) that the Swastika was "above all an amulet, talisman, or phylactere," while (p. 56) " it is incontestable that a great number of the Swastikas were simply motifs of ornamentation, of coin marks, and marks of fabrics," but he agrees (p.57) that there is no symbol that has given rise to so many interpretations, not even the trucula of the Buddhists, and "This is a great deal to say." Ludwig Müller believes the Swastika to have been used as an ornament and as a charm and amulet, as well as a sacred symbol.
ENDNOTES:
1. Archaeologia, xliii, pt. 2, pp. 324, 325. [Back]
2. "La Migration des Symboles,"p. 64. [Back]
3. "Fylfot and Swastika," Archaeologia, 1885, p. 293. [Back]
4. "La Migration des Symboles," p.65. [Back]
5. "Le Dieu gaulois du Soleil et le symbolisme de al rome," Paris, 1886. [Back]
6. Proe. Amer. Philosoph. Soc., 1889, pp. 177-187. [Back]
7. "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," [Back]
8. "The Book of the Sword," p. 202. [Back]
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