The Swastika
Definitions, Description & Origin
* * * The finding of the Swastika in America gives a very wide geographical space that is included by the problems connected with it, but it is wider still, for the Swastika is found over the most of the habitable world, almost literally "from China to Peru," and it can be traced back to a very early period. The latest idea formed regarding the Swastika is that it may be a form of the old wheel symbolism and that it represents a solar movement, or perhaps, in a sideral sense, the whole celestial movement of the starts. The Dharmachakra, or Buddhist wheel, of which the so-called "praying wheel" of the Lamas of Thibet is only a variant , can now be shown to have represented the solar motion. It did not originate with the Buddhists; they borrowed it from the Brahminical system to the Veda, where it is called "The wheel of the sun." I have lately collected a large amount of evidence on this subject, being engaged in writing upon it, and the numerous passages from the old Brahminical authorities leave no doubt in the matter. The late Mr. Edward Thomas * * * and Prof. Percy Gardner * * * declared that on some Andhra gold coins and one from Mesembria, Greece, the part of the word which means day, or when the sun shines, is represented by the Swastika. These details will be found in a letter published in the "Athenæum" of August 20, 1892, written by Prof. Max Müller, who affirms that it "is decisive" as to the meaning of the symbol in Greece. This evidence may be "decisive" for India and Greece, but it does not make us quite certain about other parts of the world. Still it raises a strong presumption that its meaning is likely to be some what similar wherever the symbol is found. It is now assumed that the Triskelion or three legs of the Isle of Man is only a variant of the Swastika. * * * There are many variants besides this in which the legs, or limbs, differ in number, and they may all be classed as whorls, and were probably all, more or less, forms intended originally to express motion. As the subject is too extensive to be fully treated here, and many illustrations would be necessary, to those wishing for further details I would recommend a work just published entitled "The Migration of symbols," by Count Goblet d'Alviella, with an introduction by Sir George Birdwood. The frontispiece of the book is a representation of Apollo, from a vase in the Knsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, and on the middle of Apollo's breast there is a large and prominent Swastika. In this we have another instance going far to show its solar significance. While accepting these new interpretations of the symbol, I am still inclined to the notion that the Swastika may, at the same time, have been looked upon in some cases as a cross-- that is, a pre-Christian cross, which now finds acceptance by some authorities as representing the four cardinal points. The importance of the cardinal points in primitive symbolism appears to me to have been very great, and has not as yet been fully realized. This is too large a matter to deal with here. All I can state is, that the wheel in India was connected with the title of a Chakrarartin-- from Chakra, a wheel-- the title meaning a supreme ruler, or a universal monarch, who ruled the four quarters of the world, and on his coronation he had to drive his chariot, or wheel, to the four cardinal points to signify his conquest of them. Evidence of other ceremonies of the same kind in Europe can be produced. From instances such as these, I am inclined to assume that the Swastika, as a cross, represented the four quarters over which the solar power by its revolving motion carried its influence.
Prehistoric archaeologists have found in Europe many specimens of ornamental sculpture and engraving belonging to the Paleolithic age, but the cross is not known in any form, Swastika or other. In the Neolithic age, which spread itself over nearly the entire world, with many geometric forms of decoration, no form of the cross appears in times of high antiquity as a symbol or as indicating any other than an ornamental purpose.
In the age of bronze, however, the Swastika appears, intentionally used, as a symbol as well as an ornament. Whether its first appearance was in the Orient, and its spread thence throughout prehistoric Europe, or whether the reverse was true, may not now be determined with certainty. It is believed by some to be involved in that other warmly disputed and much-discussed question as to the locality or origins and the mode and routes of dispersion of Aryan peoples. There is evidence to show that it belongs to an earlier epoch than this, and relates to the similar problem concerning the locality or origin and the mode and routes of the dispersion of bronze. Was bronze discovered in eastern Asia and was its migration westward through Europe, or was it discovered on the Mediterranean, and its spread thence! The Swastika spread through the same countries as did the bronze, and there is every reason to believe them to have proceeded contemporaneously -- whether at their beginning or not, is understandable.
The first appearance of the Swastika was apparently in the Orient, precisely in what country it is impossible to say, but probably in central and southeastern Asia among the forerunners or predecessors of the Brahmins and Buddhists. At all events, a religious and symbolic signification was attributed to ti by the earliest known peoples of these localities.
M. Michale Zmigrodski, a Polish scholar, public librarian at Such a, near Craeow, prepared and sent to the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago an manuscript chart in French, showing his opinion of the migration of the Swastika, which was displayed in the Woman's Building. It is arranged in groups: The prehistoric (or Pagan) and Christian. These were divided geographically and with an attempt at chronology, as follows:
I. Prehistoric:
1. India and Bactria.
2. Cyprus, Rhodes.
3. North Europe.
4. Central Europe.
5. South Europe.
6. Asia Minor.
7. Greek and Roman epoch -- Numismatics.
II. Christian:
8. Gaul -- Numismatics.
9. Byzantine.
10. Merovingian and Carlovingian.
11. Germany.
12. Poland and Sweden.
13. Great Britain.
Lastly he introduces a group of the Swastika in the nineteenth century. He presented figures of Swastikas from these localities and representing these epochs. He had a similar display at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which at this close was deposited in the St. Germain Prehistoric Museum. I met M. Zmigrodski at the Tenth International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology in Paris, and heard him present the results of his investigations on the Swastika. I have since corresponded with him, and he has kindly sent me separates of his paper published in the Archives für Ethnographie, with 266 illustrations of the Swastika; but on asking his permission to sue some of the information in the chart at Chicago, he informed me he had already given the manuscript chart and the right to reproduce it to the Chicago Folk-Lore Society. The Secretary of this society declined to permit it to pass out of its possession, though proffering inspection of it in Chicago.
In his elaborate dissertation Count Goblet d'Alviella (2) shows an earlier and prehistoric existence of the Swastika before its appearance on the hill of Hissarlik. From this earlier place of origin it, according to him, spread to the Bronze age terramares of northern Italy. All this was prior to the thirteenth century B.C. From the hill of Hissarlik ti spread east and west; to the east into Lycaonia and Caneasus, to the west into Mycenae and Greece; first on the pottery and then on the coins. From Greece it also spread east and west; east to Asia Minor and west to Thrace and Macedonia. From the terramares he follows it through the Villanova epoch, through Etruruia and Grand Greece, to Sicily, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, to all of which migration he assigns various dates down to the second century BC it developed westward from Asia Minor to northern Africa and to Rome, with evidence in the Catacombs; on the eastward it goes into India, Persia, China, Tibet, and Japan. All this can be made apparent upon examination of the plate itself. It is introduced as Chart I, p. 794.
The Author enters into no discussion with Count d.Alviella over the correctness or completeness of the migrations set forth in his chart. It will be conceded, even by its author, to be largely theoretical and impossible to verify by positive proof. He will only contend that there is a probability of its correctness. It is doubted whether he can maintain his proposition of the constant presence or continued appearance of the Swastika on altars, idols, priestly vestments, and sepulchral urns, and that this demonstrates the Swastika to have always possessed the attributes of a religious symbol. It appears to have been used more frequently upon the smaller and more insignificant things of every day life-- the household utensils, the arms, weapons, the dress, the fibulae, and the pottery; and while this may be consonant with the attributes of the talisman or amulet or charm, it is still compatible with the theory of the Swastika being a sign or symbol for benediction, blessing, good fortune, or good luck; and that it was rather this than a religious symbol.
ENDNOTES:
1.
Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, January, 1895,
pp. 84. 85. [Back]
2. "La Migration des Symboles," pl. 3. [Back]
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