What's the origin of the Swastika?

[Zcylen]

I have read about it in many places and looks like no one has the same opinion.

 

[Oruc]

i was told that it had somthing to do with the Celts, also read that some poet guy who was in the Italian army used it in Fuime when he controled it or he may have used the salute

 

[Knight-Dragon]

I believe it originates in ancient India, as one of the symbols of one the religions there, the Hindu Vedic perhaps. And associated with the Indo-Aryan speakers who seemed to have moved into the region in around 1500 BCE.

It's still used as a symbol for Buddhism. In Singapore, there's a Buddhist religious society known as the Red Swastika Society, with a red swastika as its symbol.

 

[WickedSmurf]

The first theory is what I've heard most of.

In response to a question about the origins of the swastika, forum members have researched the historically popular symbol now associated almost exclusively with the much-hated Nazis and Hitler. Here are the results of their research.

One popular notion holds that it is a very old solar symbol. Relatedly, recent scholarship with ancient Indian and Vedic documents reveals a legend concerning a mythical demonic semi-deity who was obsessed with world conquest and the destruction of subject people/races. His name is difficult to translate from Sanskrit, but it's phonetic rendering into English sounds something like "Putz."
-Mizta Bumpy (HERRBUMPY)

I just know that many symbols (as well as philosophers like Nietzsche, etc.) were misunderstood / mistreated / badly-used by Nazis. One of them was the swastika, which, I think, symbolized the four powers of nature. I think it was found in other ancient lands too, apart from Sumeria.
The swastika resembles a lot the "Greek" cross in its symmetry, if you take out those little "wings" from the swastika. That's the only connection I can find with Christianity. Of course many pre-Christian symbols were redefined and "used" by Christians of all times (with varying success).
-APOLLODOROS

The swastika is indeed a sun symbol from antiquity, appropriate in many themes & on many occasions. Like flood legends, the swastika (in various recognizable styles) is one of many symbols found thru-out ancient civilisations having no possible contact (as we understand contact) with each other. Usually it meant the sun, in its scheme as "the wheel of life". (Mayan, I believe.) It was also a popular good luck symbol. For example, it can be found on pre-1930 American New Year's greeting cards.
A white swastika on a black field was the flag of an American Boy Scout Troop from its founding to some point in the 1930's, when the Troop itself voted to discontinue its use, in light of the rise of the Nazi regime. The German-American Bundt (the pre-War American Nazi movement), who also used the swastika, may also have influenced their decision.

The Indian and Vedic connection you mention is likely the swastika's oldest incarnation. The symbol itself may still be found as an architectural element, decorating sufficiently aged temples to whatever deity is involved. There is a simply fascinating documentary on the swastika, and its journey from mystic rune to fascist emblem. Unhappily, I can't recall the title.

If memory serves, a particular German woman of wealth, and the upper class, made it her cause to sponsor the swastika into its position as The Emblem of the Nazi party. As often happens after wars, mysticism and spiritualism was popular thru-out post WW1 and the 1920's. She appears to have been a true believer of some kind, and felt the swastika itself had the power to lead Germany to ultimate triumph, that soldiers who fought under it would obtain super-strength, etc.
-SISTERSEATTL

The swastika is (or was, depending on your WWII point of view) actually a symbol of good luck, and possibly of fertility and regeneration.
I once read that several ancient cultures associated the symbol with the sun, although I'm not sure of the actual details on this. The Navajo Indians also had a similar symbol - depicting their gods of the mountains, rivers, and rain.

In India, the swastika is an auspicious mark - worn as jewelry or marked on objects as a symbol of good luck. The symbol, though, is extremely ancient and predates Hinduism. The Hindus associated it with the sun and wheel of birth and rebirth. It is an emblem of the Hindu god Vishnu, one of the supreme Hindu deities.

hope this shed a little light.....
_PEENIE1

Swastika has nothing to do with Christ and with Christianism. It is a Buddhist symbol for peace, as it still appears nowadays on Buddhist temples in Asia. I have seen one in a bi-lingual edition of a Taiwanese magazine. The editors felt the necessity of explaining in the English text that Swastika is a Buddhist symbol of peace, and this is why the puzzled European reader could see it in pictures showing temples.
A difference however can be noticed: the orientation of the arms is clockwise in the Buddhist swastika and anti-clockwise in the one adapted by the Nazis. Unfortunately I don't know how this change occurred or its significance.
- MYKK1

The swastika... has nothing to do with the swastika used as the symbol in Nazi Germany. That symbol is from Nordic runes and was used in Nordic tribes' pagan culture. Later it was also used by the Teutonic Knights formed in the 12th century. From this source the Nazis got a lot of their symbols, like the SS rune.
-GUENTERHB

Source

 

[Xen]

it has an ancietn heritge amoung the VERY ancient Indo-European culture, and was used as a symbol of good luck, until bering perverted forever by nazism, it meant this all through history, though its use in the west as real insigni before the nazis ended when the Roman crushed the smaniotes who were fond of using the symbol, apperntlly, the Romans had no want to use the symbol for much of anything, though its use continued, and even continues to this day I hear in india for the orgional purpose

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Moved to History.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I remember in a classical archaeology class seeing a swastika on a piece of archaic Greek pottery.

 

[SanPellegrino]

I also heard the indian origin version most often

 

[Patroklos]

I do get tired of people that constantly associate the swastika ou of context, as all the posts above prove it to be a very dynaic symbol.

I aften wonder what we would discover if we traced the various symbols and crest of today back a few thousand years. I bet every concievable one has been used by a despot of imfamy at some point.

 

[philippe]

I heard the swastika was a Celtic rune

_

 

[Stefan Haertel]

I've seen it on Mesopotamian pottery, and also as a Roman ornament.
But there is also a swastika on an edition of the Koran I own.

 

[Achinz]

A claim for precedence could be made for Buddhists where their form of the swastika has the arms pointing in the reversed direction.

 

[Esckey]

I don't know where it originates from but I do remember seeing on TV several tmes and reading in several books that Hitler want some sorta of symbol that he could unite Germany. And he took some anceint symbol and twisted and turned it into the swastika. I think he turned them around(so the arms were pointing the other way) and then rotated it on that slant that it has now.

That's what I can remembe now. There's some doodlings left behind by Hitler that show his other alternative symbols.

 

[stalin006]

i think there are ancient jewish temples w/ the swatika simbol (no i am not jk)

 

[Sarevok]

that would freak me out.

 

[Sims2789]

my dad has a 100-something year-old copy of the Jungle Book and there is a swastika in there somewhere. i believe it was the logo of the publisher or something like that(im not saying the publisher invented it).

 

[fazzoletti]

I havent done any research, but I heard the original swastika signifies the path of the sun (from east to west on the northern hemisphere) which signifies the cycle of life, whereas the nazi-swastika signifies the opposite, meaning decay or destruction. Also, I heard some people claim that the nazi swastika is simply an alteration of the letters SS glued together. Don't know if either of these explanations are true though...

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

I think it was originally used by the greeks as a symbol of love and peace. Nazi Germany took the symbol and reversed it, to mean other things.

 

[Tathlum]

I was always tought that it was an ancient indo-european symbol. Never heard of it being particularly Celtic before...Doesnt seem particularly Celtic anyway..Can anyone tell me where they heard this connection?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Weren't the Celts part of the Indo-European group?