Swastika

{{Short description|Ancient Eurasian icon and Nazi symbol}} {{Other uses}} {{Pp-semi-indef}} {{Pp-move}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}} {{Use British English|date=January 2026}} thumb|The swastika is a symbol with many styles and meanings and has been used in many cultures and religions around the world for millennia. [[File:Flag of the NSDAP (1920–1945, 1-1).svg|thumb|The appropriation of the swastika by the Nazi Party (1920–1945) is the most recognisable modern usage of the symbol in the Western world.]]

The '''swastika''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|w|ɒ|s|t|ɪ|k|ə}} {{respell|SWOST|ik|ə}}, {{ipa|sa|ˈsʋɐstikɐ|lang}}; '''卐''' or '''卍''') is a symbol that has been used in many cultures and religions of Eurasia, as well as a few in Africa and the Americas, for thousands of years. The swastika was and continues to be used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in several religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="Sullivan2001p216" /><ref name="snodgrass82" /><ref name="Cort 2001 17">{{cite book |last=Cort |first=John E. |author-link=John E. Cort |title=Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PZk-4HOMzsoC|publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-513234-2 |page=17}}</ref><ref name="p.97" /> In the Western world, it is predominantly associated with Nazism, being appropriated and widely displayed in Nazi symbolism. Most notably, it was etched onto the flag of Nazi Germany. This appropriation continues with the symbol's popularity among neo-Nazis around the world.<ref name="britswast">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/swastika |title=Swastika |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |access-date=2022-05-22}}</ref><ref name="BBC News 2014">{{cite magazine |url= https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591 |title=How the world loved the swastika – until Hitler stole it |first=Mukti Jain |last=Campion |date=2014-10-23 |magazine=BBC News Magazine |access-date=2022-01-11}}</ref><ref name="Roden" /><ref name="Olson">{{Cite journal |last=Olson |first=Jim |date=September 2020 |title=The Swastika Symbol in Native American Art |journal=Whispering Wind |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=23–25 |id={{ProQuest|2453170975}} }}</ref>

The English word ''swastika'' is originally of the Sanskrit language ({{langx|sa|स्वस्तिक|label=none}}, {{Literal translation|conducive to well-being}}).<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="etymology" /> In Hinduism, the right-facing symbol ({{char|卐}}) is called {{lang|sa-Latn|swastika}}, symbolizing {{lang|sa-Latn|surya}}, prosperity, and good luck; while the left-facing symbol ({{char|卍}}) is sometimes called '''{{lang|sa-Latn|sauvastika}}''', symbolising night or tantric aspects of Kali.<ref name="britswast" /> In Jain symbolism, it is a part of the Jain flag,<ref name="jainqq.org">{{cite web |last1=Jain |first1=Vijay K. |author1-link=Amritchandra |title=Shri Amritchandra Suri's Puruṣārthasiddhyupāya |url=https://jainqq.org/explore/009868/6 |website=Jain Quantum |access-date=23 January 2025 |page=6}}</ref> and represents Suparshvanatha—the seventh of 24 Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers and saviours). In Buddhist symbolism, it represents the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="silverblatt109" /><ref>{{cite book |first1=Mohan |last1=Pant |first2=Shūji |last2=Funo |title=Stupa and Swastika: Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=W-K5_Z8qsJEC |date=2007 |publisher=National University of Singapore Press |isbn=978-9971-69-372-5 |page=231 with note 5}}</ref> In different Indo-European traditions, the swastika symbolises fire, lightning bolts and the Sun.<ref name="Greg">{{cite book |last1=Greg |first1=Robert Philips |title=On the Meaning and Origin of the Fylfot and Swastika |url=https://archive.org/details/onmeaningandori00londgoog |date=1884 |publisher=Nichols and Sons |pages=[https://archive.org/details/onmeaningandori00londgoog/page/n11 6], 29}}</ref> The symbol is found in the archaeological remains of the Indus Valley Civilization<ref>{{cite web|title=Faience button seal|url=https://www.harappa.com/indus4/45.html|quote=Faience button seal (H99-3814/8756-01) with swastika motif found on the floor of Room 202 (Trench 43).}}</ref> and the Neolithic-era Samarra culture of Mesopotamia. It has also been recored in early Byzantine and Christian artwork.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Britannica |entry=Swastika |entry-url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/swastika |quote=The swastika also appeared in early Christian and Byzantine art (where it became known as the gammadion cross, or crux gammata, because it could be constructed from four Greek gammas [ Γ ] attached to a common base).}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Textile with Interlacing Bands forming Swastika Figures (German, 14th–15th century) |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463250}}</ref>

The swastika was seen as a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck for most of the Western world until the 1930s.<ref name="BBC News 2014" /> It was first used as a symbol of international antisemitism by far-right Romanian politician A. C. Cuza prior to World War I.<ref>{{Cite book |publisher=B'nai B'rith |title=The National Jewish Monthly |volume=55–56 |page=181 |date=1940 |access-date=28 July 2022 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fTIlAQAAMAAJ&q=%22as%20an%20emblem%22 |archive-date=28 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728230502/https://books.google.ro/books?id=fTIlAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22as%20an%20emblem%22 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NFZpAAAAMAAJ&q=%22brandishing%22 |title=Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera, Center for Romanian Studies, 1998, ''Nicolae Iorga: A Biography'', p. 102 |isbn=978-973-98091-7-7 |access-date=28 July 2022 |archive-date=5 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105083200/https://books.google.ro/books?id=NFZpAAAAMAAJ&dq&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22brandishing%22 |url-status=live |last1=Nagy-Talavera |first1=Nicholas M. |date=1998 |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sOUPsUNhO6wC&pg=PA28 |title=Ion C. Butnaru, Renee Spodheim, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992, ''The Silent Holocaust: Romania and Its Jews'', p. 28 |isbn=978-0-313-27985-0 |access-date=28 July 2022 |archive-date=5 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105083151/https://books.google.ro/books?id=sOUPsUNhO6wC&pg=PA28 |url-status=live |last1=Butnaru |first1=Ion C. |last2=Spodheim |first2=Renee |date=1992 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing }}</ref> Wider public perception would only change once the German Nazi Party adopted the swastika as an emblem of the so-called Aryan race. As a result of World War II and the Holocaust, Western societies continue to strongly associate the symbol with Nazism, antisemitism,<ref name="holocaust2009" /><ref name="wiener463" /> white supremacism,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stollznow |first1=Karen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dsf3DwAAQBAJ&dq=Swastika+%2522symbol+of+white+supremacy%2522&pg=PA134 |title=On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present |date=2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49627-8 |page=134}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Langman |first1=Lauren |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dk4PDQAAQBAJ&dq=Swastika+%2522symbol+of+white+supremacy%2522&pg=PA89 |title=God, Guns, Gold and Glory: American Character and its Discontents |last2=Lundskow |first2=George |date=2016 |publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-32863-1 |page=89}}</ref> or simply evil.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lander |first1=Janis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IH5iAgAAQBAJ&dq=swastika+%2522symbol+of+evil%2522&pg=PA28 |title=Spiritual Art and Art Education |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-66789-5 |page=28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wagoner |first1=Brady |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWeMAgAAQBAJ&dq=swastika+%2522symbol+of+evil%2522&pg=PA13 |title=Symbolic Transformation: The Mind in Movement Through Culture and Society |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-15090-7 |page=13}}</ref> As a consequence, displaying it is prohibited by law in several countries.{{efn-ua|Except for religious use.}} However, the swastika remains a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and other Asian communities. It continues to be a peaceful cultural symbol in countries like Sri Lanka, Mongolia, India, Japan, China and Nepal. It carries various other meanings for people around the world, such as the Akan, Hopi, Navajo, and Tlingit peoples.

==Etymology and nomenclature==

[[File:Snoldelevsunwheel.jpg|thumb|Drawing of a swastika on the Snoldelev Stone found in Ramsø, Denmark (9th century)]] {{Quote box | width = 30em | quote = With well-being ('''swasti''') we would follow along our path, like the Sun and the Moon. May we meet up with one who gives in return, who does not smite (harm), with one who knows. | source = — The Rigveda V.51.15<ref>{{cite book | last1=Jamison | first1=S.W. | last2=Brereton | first2=J.P. | title=The Rigveda: 3-Volume Set | publisher=Oxford University Press | series=South Asia Research | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-19-972078-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgzVAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA727 | access-date=2023-10-14 | page=727}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=ऋग्वेदः सूक्तं ५.५१ | website=विकिस्रोतः | url=https://sa.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A4%8B%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%83_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%82_%E0%A5%AB.%E0%A5%AB%E0%A5%A7 | language=sa | access-date=2023-10-14}}</ref> | salign = left }} The word ''swastika'' is derived from the Sanskrit root {{lang|sa-Latn|swasti}}, which is composed of {{lang|sa-Latn|su}} 'good, well' and {{lang|sa-Latn|asti}} 'is; it is; there is'.<ref name="Schliemann347" /> The word {{lang|sa-Latn|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.<ref name="M-W" /><ref>[https://archive.org/stream/vedicconcordance00bloouoft#page/1053/mode/1up A Vedic Concordance], Maurice Bloomfield, Harvard University Press, pp. 1052–1054</ref> The final {{lang|sa-Latn|ka}} is a common suffix that could have multiple meanings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Sanskrit_Grammar_by_Whitney_p1.djvu/494|title=Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/494 – Wikisource, the free online library|website=en.wikisource.org|access-date=2019-06-10}}</ref>

According to the 19th-century Sanskrit scholar Monier Monier-Williams, most scholars consider the swastika to have originally been a solar symbol.<ref name="M-W" />{{Update inline|date=September 2025|reason=1899 source for "a majority of scholars believe"??}} The sign implies well-being, something fortunate, lucky, or auspicious.<ref name="M-W" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Zimmer |first1=Heinrich |title=Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref> It is alternatively spelled in contemporary{{Clarify|reason=Contemporary to what? M-W? Or should this be "modern"?|date=September 2025}} texts as ''svastika'',<ref>{{cite book |first1=F. R. |last1=Allchin |first2=George |last2=Erdosy |title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C&pg=PA180 |date=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-37695-2 |page=180}}</ref> and other spellings were occasionally used in the 19th and early 20th century, such as ''suastika''.<ref>First recorded 1871 (OED); alternative historical English spellings include ''suastika'', ''swastica'', and ''svastica''; see, for example: {{cite book |title=Notes and Queries|issue= 170|date= 31 March 1883 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=C2AEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA259 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=259}}</ref> It was derived from the Sanskrit term (Devanagari {{lang|sa|स्वस्तिक}}), which transliterates to ''{{IAST|svastika}}'' under the commonly used IAST transliteration system, but is pronounced closer to ''swastika''.

The earliest known use of the word swastika is in Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī, which uses it to explain a Sanskrit grammar rule, in the context of a type of identifying mark on a cow's ear.<ref name="Schliemann347" /> Pāṇini lived in or before the 4th century BCE,<ref>{{cite journal |first=Frits |last=Staal |author-link=Frits Staal |date=April 1965 |title=Euclid and Pāṇini |journal=Philosophy East and West |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=99–116|jstor=1397332 |doi=10.2307/1397332 |issn=0031-8221 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |date=1998 |title=Pāṇini: A Survey of Research |last=Cardona |first=George |author-link=George Cardona |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-1494-3 |page=268 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=adWXhQ-yHQUC&pg=PA268 |via=Google Books}}</ref> possibly in 6th or 5th century BCE.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url= https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ashtadhyayi |title=Panini (Indian Grammarian) |date=2013 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Hartmut |last=Scharfe |title=Grammatical Literature |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2_VbnWkZ-SYC&pg=PA88 |date=1977 |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |isbn=978-3-447-01706-0 |pages=88–89 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

An early use of ''swastika'' in a European text was in 1871, in the publications of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered more than 1,800 ancient instances of swastikas and variants while excavating the Hisarlik mound near the Aegean Sea coast to study the history of Troy. Schliemann linked his findings to the Sanskrit {{lang|sa-Latn|swastika}}.<ref name="boissoneaultsm" /><ref>{{cite web |first=Douglas |last=Harper |date=2016 |url= http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=swastika |title=Swastika |work=Etymology Dictionary}}</ref>{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=57–58}}

By the 19th century, the term ''swastika'' was adopted into English,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Oxford English Dictionary |entry=Swastika |date=1933 |entry-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.120833/page/n1120/mode/1up |page=290 |volume=X. Sole{{ndash}}Sz |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> replacing the previous ''gammadion'' from Greek {{lang|grc|γαμμάδιον}}. In 1878, the Irish scholar Charles Graves used ''swastika'' as the common English name for the symbol, after defining it as equivalent to the French term {{lang|fr|croix gammée}}{{snd}}a cross with arms shaped like the Greek letter gamma (Γ).<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AHcTAAAAYAAJ |title=On the Croix Gammée, or Swastika |last=Graves |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Graves (bishop) |date=April 1879 |journal=The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy |volume=27 |pages=41–46 |publisher=Royal Irish Academy}} Read by Graves to the Royal Irish Academy on 13 May 1878.</ref> Shortly thereafter, the British antiquarians Edward Thomas and Robert Sewell separately published their studies about the symbol, using ''swastika'' as the common English term.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-UIOAAAAQAAJ |title=The Indian Swastika and Its Western Counterparts |first=Edward |last=Thomas |author-link=Edward Thomas (antiquarian) |date=1880 |publisher=Royal Numismatic Society |journal=Numismatic Chronicle |volume=20 |pages=18–48}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TRYHAAAAQAAJ |title=Notes on the Swastika |first=Robert |last=Sewell |author-link=Robert Sewell (historian) |date=1881 |journal=The Indian Antiquary |volume=9 |pages=65–73}}</ref>

The "reversed" swastika was probably first conceived by Eugène Burnouf among European scholars in 1852 and later taken up by Schliemann in ''Ilios'' (1880), based on a letter from Max Müller quoting Burnouf. The term {{lang|sa-Latn|sauwastika}} is used in the sense of 'backward swastika' by Eugène Goblet d'Alviella (1894): "In India it [the ''gammadion''] bears the name of {{lang|sa-Latn|swastika}}, when its arms are bent towards the right, and {{lang|sa-Latn|sauwastika}} when they are turned in the other direction."<ref>[http://sacred-texts.com/sym/mosy/mosy06.htm#page_40 ''The Migration of Symbols''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225075221/https://sacred-texts.com/sym/mosy/mosy06.htm#page_40 |date=25 February 2021 }}, by Eugène Goblet d'Alviella, (1894), p. 40 at sacred-texts.com</ref>

Other names for the symbol include: * {{lang|grc-Latn|tetragammadion}} (Greek: {{lang|grc|τετραγαμμάδιον}}) or ''cross gammadion'' ({{langx|la|crux gammata}}; French: {{lang|fro|croix gammée}}), as each arm resembles the Greek letter Γ ({{lang|grc-Latn|gamma}})<ref name="MigSym" /> * ''hooked cross'' (German: {{lang|de|Hakenkreuz}}), ''angled cross'' ({{lang|de|Winkelkreuz}}), or ''crooked cross'' ({{lang|de|Krummkreuz}}) * ''cross cramponned'', ''cramponnée'', or ''cramponny'' in heraldry, as each arm resembles a crampon or angle-iron ({{langx|de|link=no|Winkelmaßkreuz}}) * ''fylfot'', chiefly in heraldry and architecture * {{lang|grc-Latn|tetraskelion}} (Greek: {{lang|grc|τετρασκέλιον}}), literally meaning 'four-legged', especially when composed of four conjoined legs (compare triskelion/triskele [Greek: {{lang|grc|τρισκέλιον}}])<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tetraskelion |title=tetraskelion |work=Merriam-Webster Dictionary |edition=Online |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. |access-date=9 February 2019}}</ref> * {{lang|lv|ugunskrusts}} (Latvian for 'fire cross, cross of fire"; other names{{snd}} {{lang|lv|pērkonkrusts}} ('cross of thunder', 'thunder cross'), cross of Perun or of Perkūnas), cross of branches, cross of Laima) * ''whirling logs'' (Navajo): can denote abundance, prosperity, healing, and luck<ref>{{cite web |url=http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/07/melissa-codys-whirling-logs-dont-you-dare-call-them-swastikas-150782 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130811070916/http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/07/melissa-codys-whirling-logs-dont-you-dare-call-them-swastikas-150782 |archive-date=11 August 2013 |title=Melissa Cody's Whirling Logs: Don't You Dare Call Them Swastikas |date=7 August 2013 |work=Indian Country Today Media Network}}</ref>

In various European languages, it is known as the ''fylfot'', {{lang|grc-Latn|gammadion}}, {{lang|grc-Latn|tetraskelion}}, or {{lang|fro|cross cramponnée}} (a term in Anglo-Norman heraldry); German: {{lang|de|Hakenkreuz}}; French: {{lang|fr|croix gammée}}; Italian: {{lang|it|croce uncinata}}; Latvian: {{lang|lv|ugunskrusts}}. In Mongolian it is called {{lang|mn-Cyrl|хас}} ({{lang|mn-Latn|khas}}) and mainly used in seals. In Chinese it is called 卍字, pronounced {{lang|cmn-Latn|wànzì}} in Mandarin, ''manji'' in Cantonese, {{lang|ja-Latn|manji}} in Japanese, {{lang|ko-Latn|manja}} (만자) in Korean and {{lang|vi|vạn tự}} or {{lang|vi|chữ vạn}} in Vietnamese. In Balti/Tibetan language it is called {{lang|bft-Latn|yung drung}}.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arya |first=Tsewang Gyalpo |date=2016 |title=Yungdrung-bon, the Religion of Eternal Truth in the Land of Snow: A Note to dispel the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the religion |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/tibetjournal.41.2.63 |journal=The Tibet Journal |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=63–71 |issn=0970-5368}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Yungdrung |first=Kalden |date=18 October 2017 |title=The Yungdrung |url=https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=26784 |access-date=8 May 2026 |website=Dharma Wheel}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-07-18 |title=The Meaning of the Swastika in Tibetan Buddhism |url=https://www.hdasianart.com/blogs/news/the-meaning-of-the-swastika-in-tibetan-buddhism |access-date=2026-05-08 |website=HD Asian Art |language=en}}</ref>

==Appearance== {{multiple image | image_gap = 5 | align = right | image1 = Swastika.svg | width1 = 90 | alt1 = | caption1 = | image2 = Swastika right-facing.svg | width2 = 90 | alt2 = | caption2 = | footer = 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.<ref name="John Powers">{{cite book |first=John |last=Powers |title=Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=cy980CH84mEC&pg=PA509 |date=2007 |publisher=Shambhala Press |isbn=978-1-55939-835-0 |page=509 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Luciano |last=Chessa |title=Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=P2NGRnEFfmQC&pg=PA34 |date=2012 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-95156-3 |page=34 |via=Google Books}}</ref> }}

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{{spaces}}×{{spaces}}5 square grid and with the broken portions of its legs shortened by one unit can tile the plane by translation alone. The main Nazi flag swastika used a 5{{spaces}}×{{spaces}}5 diagonal grid, but with the legs unshortened.<ref>"[http://flagspot.net/flags/de%271933.html Swastika Flag Specifications and Construction Sheet (Germany)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050208032141/http://flagspot.net/flags/de%271933.html |date=8 February 2005 }}". ''Flags of the World''.</ref>

===Written characters=== {{multiple image | image_gap = 5 | align = right | image1 = Cangjie NX.svg | width1 = 90 | alt1 = | caption1 = | image2 = Cangjie VX.svg | width2 = 90 | alt2 = | caption2 = | footer = 卍 and 卐 characters. }}

The swastika was adopted as a standard character in Chinese, "{{script|Hant|卍}}" ({{lang-zh|p=wàn}}) and as such entered various other East Asian languages, including Chinese script. In Japanese, the symbol is called {{nihongo|"{{lang|ja|卍}}"||manji|lead=yes}} or {{nihongo|"{{lang|ja|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);<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf#page=35&zoom=auto,-76,166 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030916074204/http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf |archive-date=2003-09-16 |url-status=live |title=CJK Unified Ideographs }} {{small|(4.83 MB)}}, ''The Unicode Standard, Version 4.1''. Unicode, Inc. 2005.</ref> The latter has a mapping in the original Big5 character set,<ref>Big5: C9_C3, according to Wenlin</ref> but the former does not (although it is in Big5+<ref>Big5+: 85_80, according to Wenlin</ref>). In Unicode 5.2, two swastika symbols and two swastikas were added to the Tibetan block: swastika {{unichar|0FD5|right-facing svasti sign}}, {{unichar|0FD7|right-facing svasti sign with dots}}, and swastikas {{unichar|0FD6|left-facing svasti sign}}, {{unichar|0FD8|left-facing svasti sign with dots}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tibetan |url=https://unicode.org/charts/nameslist/n_0F00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240730015250/https://unicode.org/favicon.ico |archive-date=30 July 2024 |publisher=Unicode Consortium}}</ref>

==Origin==

European uses of swastikas are often treated alongside 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,<ref>Paliga S., ''The tablets of Tărtăria'' Dialogues d'histoire ancienne, vol. 19, n°1, 1993. pp. 9–43; [http://www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1993_num_19_1_2073 (Fig. 5 on p. 28)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106214611/https://www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1993_num_19_1_2073 |date=6 November 2019 }}</ref> which appeared during the Neolithic,<ref>Freed, S. A. and R. S., "Origin of the Swastika", ''Natural History'', January 1980, 68–75.</ref> nothing certain is known about the symbol's origin.

===North Pole=== [[File:Precessional north pole (Běijí 北极) in α Ursae Minoris, drawing a wàn 卍 in the four phases of time.svg|right|thumb|Approximate representation of the {{lang|chm-Latn|Tiānmén}} {{lang|zh|天門}} ('Gate of Heaven') or {{lang|chm-Latn|Tiānshū}} {{lang|zh|天樞}} ('Pivot of Heaven') as the processional north celestial pole, with α Ursae Minoris as the pole star, with the spinning Chariot constellations in the four phases of time. {{lang|chm-Latn|Tiān}}, generally translated as 'heaven' in Chinese theology, refers to the northern celestial pole ({{lang|zh|北極}} ''Běijí''), the pivot and the vault of the sky with its spinning constellations. The celestial pivot can be represented by ''wàn'' {{lang|zh|卍}} ('myriad things').]] According to René Guénon, the swastika represents the North Pole, and the rotational movement around a centre or immutable axis ({{lang|la|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 {{lang|grc-Latn|Logos}}, the Hindu {{lang|sa-Latn|Om}}, the Chinese {{lang|chm-Latn|Taiyi}}, 'Great One') of the principle of the universe in the formation of the world.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Guénon|first1=René|author-link1=René Guénon|last2=Fohr|first2=Samuel D.|title=Symbols of Sacred Science|publisher=Sophia Perennis|date=2004|isbn=978-0-900588-78-5|pages=64–67, 113–117}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Guénon|first1=René|author-link1=René Guénon|last2=Fohr|first2=Samuel D.|title=Symbols of Sacred Science|publisher=Sophia Perennis|date=2004|isbn=978-0-900588-78-5|pages=113–117, 130}}</ref>{{efn-ua|However, due to the precession of the rotational axis of the Earth the star Polaris has only been the pole star since medieval times. Before 500 CE, the star Kochab would have been the pole star, and 2700 BCE it would have been the star Thuban in the constellation of Draco.{{cn|date=February 2026}} }}

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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Assasi|first=Reza|title=Swastika: The Forgotten Constellation Representing the Chariot of Mithras|url=https://www.academia.edu/4087681|type=Supplement: Šprajc, Ivan; Pehani, Peter, eds. ''Ancient Cosmologies and Modern Prophets: Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture''|journal=Anthropological Notebooks|volume=XIX|number=2|publisher=Slovene Anthropological Society|location=Ljubljana|date=2013|issn=1408-032X}}</ref>

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.<ref name="ru-sled.ru">Gennady Zdanovich. [http://ru-sled.ru/o-mirovozzrenii-drevnix-zhitelej-strany-gorodov/ "О мировоззрении древних жителей «Страны Городов»"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170725145444/http://ru-sled.ru/o-mirovozzrenii-drevnix-zhitelej-strany-gorodov/ |date=25 July 2017 }}. ''Русский след'', 26 June 2017.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Guénon|first1=René|author-link1=René Guénon|last2=Fohr|first2=Samuel D.|title=Symbols of Sacred Science|publisher=Sophia Perennis|date=2004|isbn=978-0-900588-78-5|page=117}}</ref>

===Comet=== [[File:Mawangdui_Astrology_Comets_Ms.JPG|thumb|left|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 {{nowrap|pre-Columbian Americas}}. The Han dynasty ''Book of Silk'' (2nd century BCE) depicts such a comet with a swastika-like symbol.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sagan|first1=Carl|url=https://archive.org/details/cometsaga00saga/page/181/mode/2up|title=Comet|last2=Druyan|first2=Ann|publisher=Random House|date=1985|isbn=0-394-54908-2|edition=1st|location=New York|pages=181–187|oclc=12080683}}</ref>

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 it resembled a bird's foot or footprint.<ref name="kobres" /> Similar comparisons had been made by J.{{Nbsp}}F. Hewitt in 1907,<ref>{{cite book|author=Hewitt|first=J. F.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QvQeAAAAMAAJ&q=peacock+foot+tracks+su+astika+flying+star+bird&pg=PA145|title=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|publisher=J. Parker and Company|date=1907|volume=1|location=Oxford|page=145}}</ref> as well as a 1908 article in ''Good Housekeeping''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Good Housekeeping |volume=47 |date=1908 |publisher=C. W. Bryan & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zHgQcMFTSwsC&q=swastika%20chicken%20tracks&pg=PA421}}</ref> Kobres goes on to suggest an association of mythological birds and comets also outside of China.<ref name="kobres" />

===Four winds=== [[File:Pima Swastika.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|Pima symbol of the 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."<ref>Frank Hamilton Cushing: "Observations Relative to the Origin of the Fylfot or Swastika", ''American Anthropologist'' vol 9, no. 2, June 1907 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/659592 p. 335] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220220134853/https://www.jstor.org/stable/659592 |date=20 February 2022 }} at JSTOR</ref>

==Historical uses==

===Prehistory=== [[File:Mezine Swastika.png|thumb|Artifacts with swastika patterns found in Mezine]] The earliest known swastikas are from 10,000 to 17,000 BCE{{snd}}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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Campbell |title=The Flight of the Wild Gander |date=2002 |page=117}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wpPnAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA52 |title=Unlocking the Prehistory of America |publisher=Rosen Publishing |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4777-2806-2 |editor-last=Joseph |editor-first=Frank |edition=1st |series= |location=New York |page=52 |language=en}}</ref> It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylised picture of a stork in flight.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Flight of the Wild Gander |last=Campbell |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Campbell |date=2002 |page=117}}</ref> As the carving was found near phallic objects, this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol.<ref name="BBC News 2014"/>

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.<ref>''Persian Sea'' magazine (2014). [https://parssea.persianblog.ir/Dvbe4xKanwIp7mnqw7yn-نقش-جهانی-سواستیکا-در-گنجینه-ها-،-بتها-و-فرش-ایرانی "The global role of the swastika in Iranian treasures, idols and carpets"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506210234/https://parssea.persianblog.ir/Dvbe4xKanwIp7mnqw7yn-%D9%86%D9%82%D8%B4-%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%DB%8C%DA%A9%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%DA%AF%D9%86%D8%AC%DB%8C%D9%86%D9%87-%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%8C-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7-%D9%88-%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%B4-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C |date=6 May 2021 }}. Iranian Studies. Accessed 19 April 2021. In Persian.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://civilica.com/doc/541074/|title = کتیبه های خوسف ولاخ مزار بیرجند، جک گویی پارتها (Parthians Joking) یا کتیبه های درست دینان سلطنت قباد؟|journal= Civilica |language= fa |date = 25 September 1395 |access-date= 18 February 2022 | last1=بشاش | first1=رسول }}</ref>

Mirror-image swastikas (clockwise and counter-clockwise) have been found on ceramic pottery in the Devetashka cave, Bulgaria, dated to 6,000 BCE.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/4220126|title=Eight Thousand Years Ago Proto-Thracians Depicted the Evolution of the Divine – English|first=Stefania|last=Dimitrova|journal=Courrier of UNESCO|date=30 January 1996|via=www.academia.edu}}</ref>

In South Asia, swastika symbols first appear in the archaeological record around<ref name="Kathleen M. Nadeau 2010 87" /> 3000 BCE in the Indus Valley Civilisation.<ref name="Heller 2008" /><ref>{{cite book|title=Stupa and Swastika: Historical Urban Planning Principles in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley|page=16|author=Mohan Pant, Shūji Funo|publisher=NUS Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W-K5_Z8qsJEC&q=swastika&pg=PR16|isbn=978-9971-69-372-5|date=2007}}</ref> It also appears in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In all these cultures, swastika symbols do 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.websters-dictionary-online.com/definitions/swastika|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130419073535/http://www.websters-dictionary-online.com/definitions/swastika?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=swastika&sa=Search%23906|archive-date=19 April 2013|title=Dictionary – Definition of swastika}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unique-design.net/library/word/symbol.html|title=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.|first=Morning Star Athbhreith Athbheochan Kwisatz Haderach|last=Druid|access-date=17 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205165736/http://www.unique-design.net/library/word/symbol.html|archive-date=5 February 2012}}</ref> It is one of the most common symbols on Mesopotamian coins.<ref name="britswast" /> In England, Neolithic or Bronze Age stone carvings of the symbol have been found on Ilkley Moor, such as the Swastika Stone.<ref>{{NHLE|num=1012014|desc=Carved rock known as the Swastika Stone |accessdate=5 July 2023}}</ref>

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,<ref>Dunham, Dows "A Collection of 'Pot-Marks' from Kush and Nubia", Kush, 13, 131–147, 1965</ref> in Iron Age designs of the northern Caucasus (Koban culture), and in Neolithic China in the Majiayao culture.<ref name="GW">{{cite book |last1=Guozhen |first1=Wang |title=Collection of Ancient Chinese Cultural Relics, Volume 1: Primitive Society (1.7 million – 4000 BC) and The Xia and Shang Dynasties (21st – 11th Century BC) |date=1 December 2019 |publisher=ATF Press |isbn=978-1-925371-29-1 |pages=123, 115, v |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sGDwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |language=en}}</ref>

Swastikas are 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.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O184378/textile-fragment-unknown/ | title=Textile fragment | publisher=V&A Museum | access-date=14 September 2017}}</ref>

The ''Tierwirbel'' (the German for "animal whorl" or "whirl of animals"<ref>a term coined by Anna Roes, "Tierwirbel", IPEK, 1936–1937</ref>) is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia, the Eurasian Steppe, and later also in Iron Age Scythian and European (Baltic<ref>{{cite web|author=Marija Gimbutas |url=http://www.vaidilute.com/books/gimbutas/gimbutas-07.html |title=The Balts before the Dawn of History |website=Vaidilute.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120110165543/http://www.vaidilute.com/books/gimbutas/gimbutas-07.html |archive-date=10 January 2012 |author-link=Marija Gimbutas }}</ref> 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).<ref>Claude Lévi-Strauss, ''Structural Anthropology'' (1959), p. 267.</ref>

<gallery> File:The Archaeological Monuments and Spaciments of Armenia Volume 6 Armenia Yerevan 1971 p 198.jpg|Rock painting in the caves of Gegham mountains, Armenia File:Samarra bowl.jpg|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.<ref>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.</ref> File:Machang Period Pottery (Swastika symbol).jpg|Machang Period Pottery, late-Majiayao culture (c.3300 to 2000 BC), Western China. File:IndusValleySeals swastikas.JPG|Swastika seals from Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, of the Indus Valley civilisation, circa 2,100–1,750 BCE, preserved at the British Museum<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dutta |first=Rita |date=2010-12-01 |title=Swastika Symbol on Bharhut Stone Railing: A Case Study |journal=Ancient Asia |language=en |volume=2 |pages=147–154 |doi=10.5334/aa.10211 |issn=2042-5937 |doi-access=free }}</ref> File:Swastika iran.jpg|A swastika necklace excavated from Marlik, Gilan province, northern Iran, circa 1,200–1,050 BCE Swastika in Ashoka Barabar Caves edict.jpg|Swastika monogram at the end of Karna Chaupar Cave edict of Ashoka </gallery>

====Caucasus==== [[File:Arevakhach.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|Armenian ''arevakhach'']]

In Armenia, the swastika is called the "arevakhach" and "kerkhach" ({{langx|hy|կեռխաչ}})<ref name="Concise Armenian Encyclopedia p. 663" />{{dubious|date=December 2014}} and is the ancient symbol of eternity and eternal light (i.e., God). Swastikas in Armenia were found on Copper Age petroglyphs, predating the Bronze Age. During the Bronze Age, it was depicted on cauldrons, belts, medallions, and other items.<ref>T. Wilson [https://archive.org/details/theswastika00wilsuoft The swastika, the earliest known symbol and its migrations], pp. 807, 951</ref>

Swastikas can also be seen on early Medieval churches and fortresses, including the principal tower in Armenia's historical capital city of Ani.<ref name="Concise Armenian Encyclopedia p. 663" /> 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.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Epec69LGa0IC&q=symbol+of+eternity+modern+armenia&pg=PA148|title=Armenia|isbn=978-1-84162-345-0|last1=Holding|first1=Nicholas|last2=Holding|first2=Deirdre|date=2011|page=148|publisher=Bradt Travel Guides }}</ref>{{clear left}}

Old petroglyphs of four-beam and other swastikas were recorded in Dagestan, in particular, among the Avars.<ref name="Debirov">{{cite book |surname=Debirov |given=Paruk M. |title=Резьба по камню в Дагестане |trans-title=Stone carving in Dagestan |language=ru |url=https://instituteofhistory.ru/library/publications/rezba-po-kamnyu-v-dagestane |place=Moscow |publisher=Nauka |date=1966}}</ref> According to Vakhushti of Kartli, the tribal banner of the Avar khans depicted a wolf with a standard with a double-spiral swastika.<ref>Vakhushti of Kartli. ''Description of the Kingdom of Georgia''.</ref>

Petroglyphs with swastikas were depicted on medieval Vainakh tower architecture (see sketches by scholar Bruno Plaetschke from the 1920s).<ref name="Plaetschke">{{cite book |surname=Plaetschke |given=Bruno |title=Die Tschetschenen: Forschungen zur Völkerkunde des nordöstlichen Kaukasus auf Grund von Reisen in den Jahren 1918–20 und 1927/28 |trans-title=The Chechens |language=de |date=1929 |url=https://nahcheworld.com/%D0%BA%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B0-%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B5-%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%86%D1%8B/ |series=Veröffentlichungen des Geographischen Instituts der Universität Königsberg Pr., 11 |publisher=Friedrichsen, de Gruyter & Co m. b. H. |place=Hamburg |archive-date=23 January 2022 |access-date=2 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220123161107/https://nahcheworld.com/%d0%ba%d0%bd%d0%b8%d0%b3%d0%b0-%d0%b1%d1%80%d1%83%d0%bd%d0%be-%d0%bf%d0%bb%d0%b5%d1%87%d0%ba%d0%b5-%d1%87%d0%b5%d1%87%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%86%d1%8b/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Thus, a rectangular swastika was made in engraved form on the entrance of a residential tower in the settlement Khimoy, Chechnya.<ref name="Plaetschke" />

<gallery> File:The petroglyph with swastikas, in Geghama mountains, Armenia.jpg|The petroglyph with swastikas, Gegham mountains, Armenia, circa 8,000–5,000 BCE<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fundamentalarmenology.am/Article/9/180/ROCK-CARVINGS-OF-ARMENIA.html|title=Rock Carvings of Armenia, Fundamental Armenology, v. 2, 2015, pp. 1-22|first=K.S.|last=Tokhatyan|publisher=Institute of History of NAS RA}}</ref> File:Swastika of Avars Daghestan.JPG|Avar old petroglyph<ref name="Debirov" /> File:Swastika avarian Dagh.JPG|Avar folk swastika File:Armenian Khachkar with Swastikas Sanahin Armenia 1.jpg|Khachkar with swastikas and hexafoils in Sanahin, Armenia File:Символы_свастики_на_арке_средневековой_башни_в_Чечне.jpg|Swastika on the medieval tower arche in Khimoy, Chechnya File:Armenian soldier from Letchashen, 15-14th centuries BC. Reconstructed by Prof. A. D. Tchagharian, Sardarapat museum, Armenia.jpg|Armenian soldier from Lchashen, 15-14th centuries BC. Reconstructed by Prof. A. D. Tchagharian in the Sardarabat Museum </gallery>

====Europe==== {{See also|Swastika (Germanic Iron Age)}}

Iron Age attestations of swastikas can be associated with Indo-European cultures such as the Illyrians,<ref name="Stipčević">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NLcWAQAAIAAJ&q=swastika|title=The Illyrians: history and culture|first=Aleksandar|last=Stipčević|date=1977|publisher=Noyes Press|access-date=14 February 2017|via=Google Books|isbn=978-0-8155-5052-5}}</ref> Indo-Iranians, Celts, Greeks, Italics, 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.<ref name="ru-sled.ru"/>

Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artefacts from Iron Age Europe.<ref name="Concise Armenian Encyclopedia p. 663" /><ref>Jacob G. Ghazarian (2006), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cKHYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Armenian+symbol+of+eternity%22 The Mediterranean legacy in early Celtic Christianity: a journey from Armenia to Ireland] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105083219/https://books.google.com/books?id=cKHYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Armenian+symbol+of+eternity%22&redir_esc=y |date=5 January 2023 }}'', Bennett & Bloom, pp. 263, p. 171 "...{{spaces}}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{{snd}}the Armenian symbol of eternity."</ref><ref>K. B. Mehr, M. Markow, ''Mormon Missionaries enter Eastern Europe'', Brigham Young University Press, 2002, pp. 399, p. 252 "...{{spaces}}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."</ref><ref name="Stipčević"/><ref name="MigSym" />

The swastika shape 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.<ref name="OLDTIDENS" />

The pagan Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing swastikas, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.<ref name="DAVIDSON83" />{{Failed verification|date=August 2017}} A 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 hypothesised that the swastika symbol was associated with Thor, possibly representing his Mjolnir{{snd}}symbolic of thunder{{snd}}and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun cross.<ref name="DAVIDSON83" /> Davidson cites "many examples" of swastika symbols from Anglo-Saxon graves of the pagan period, with particular prominence on cremation urns from the cemeteries of East Anglia.<ref name="DAVIDSON83" /> 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, they must have possessed special significance as a funerary symbol.<ref name="DAVIDSON83" /> 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.

The bronze frontispiece of a ritual pre-Christian ({{circa|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=wt9&_IXSS_=%2524%2bwith%2ball_unique_id_index%2bis%2b%2524%3dOBJ1172%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26_IXMAXHITS_%3d1%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26_IXSESSION_%3d7q_PyrzUX1l%26_IXFIRST_%3d1&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXimg=ps260150.jpg&submit-button=summary|title=The Battersea Shield|publisher=British Museum|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324011256/http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass|archive-date=24 March 2007}}</ref> An Ogham stone found in Aglish, County Kerry, Ireland (CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a cross pattée and two swastikas.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/stone/aglis_1.html |title=CISP entry |publisher=Ucl.ac.uk |access-date=2 March 2010 |archive-date=17 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091017081000/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/stone/aglis_1.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Book of Kells ({{circa|800 CE}}) contains swastika-shaped ornamentation. Some swastikas have been found embossed in Galician metalwork and carved in stone, mostly from the Castro culture period, although there are also contemporary examples (imitating old patterns for decorative purposes).<ref>Domínguez Fontela, J. (1938): [http://paxinasdaguarda.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/ceramica-de-santa-tecla-ii.html ''Cerámica de Santa Tecla. Un hallazgo importantísimo''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180323155012/http://paxinasdaguarda.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/ceramica-de-santa-tecla-ii.html |date=23 March 2018 }} in Faro de Vigo.</ref><ref>Romero, Bieito (2009): Xeometrías Máxicas de Galicia. Ir Indo, Vigo.</ref>

[[File:Swastika from Baltic.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|''Ugunskrusts'' motif]] The ancient Baltic thunder cross symbol (''pērkona krusts'' or ''perkūno kryžius'' (cross of Perkūnas); also fire cross, ''ugunskrusts'') is a swastika symbol used to decorate objects, traditional clothing, and in archaeological excavations.<ref name="Guénon-2001">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CQRWnf2JflQC&q=lithuania+use+of+swastika&pg=PA62|title=The Symbolism of the Cross|last=Guénon|first=René|date=2001|publisher=Sophia Perennis|isbn=978-0-900588-65-5|page=62|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://latvians.com/index.php?en/CFBH/Zimes/zimes-10-rhetoric.ssi#WIKFN3|title=Latvia and the Swastika|website=latvians.com|access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref>

In Lithuania, since ancient times, the swastika—found on objects crafted from antler, wood, metal, and clay—has served as a significant cultural and religious emblem deeply rooted in Baltic tradition among the Lithuanians. The researchers of Klaipėda University discovered that there was no standardized or canonical form of the symbol: on single-sided artifacts, the swastika’s arms could rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise, whereas two-sided items might display both orientations simultaneously, suggesting an inclusive or multifaceted symbolic intention. Importantly, the contexts in which the swastika appears are often linked to two deities in Lithuanian mythology: Perkūnas, the god of thunder, and Kalvelis, the blacksmith. This association reinforces the concept of the swastika as a manifestation of the “fire cross”—an equilateral cross symbolizing fire or thunder—an enduring motif within Baltic and ancient Lithuanian religious iconography.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Vaitkevičius |first1=Vykintas |url=https://e-journals.ku.lt/journal/AB/article/806/info|title=The Swastika in Lithuania: The Horizon of the 13th and 14th Centuries|journal=Archaeologia Baltica |publisher=Klaipėda University|date=5 December 2020 |volume=27 |pages=104–119 |doi=10.15181/ab.v27i0.2180 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

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.<ref name="Old Slavic Symbols" />

The Boreyko coat of arms with a red swastika was used by several noble families in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.<ref>{{cite book |surname=Gajl |given=Tadeusz |date=2007  |title=Polish Armorial Middle Ages to 20th Century |url= http://gajl.wielcy.pl/herby_nazwiska.php?lang=en&herb=borejko |place=Gdańsk |publisher=L&L |isbn=978-83-60597-10-1 |via=Gajl.wielcy.pl}}</ref>

According to Boris Kuftin, the Russians often used swastikas as a decorative element and as the basis of ornamentation on traditional woven products.<ref name="Kuftin">{{cite book |surname=Kuftin |given=Boris A.  |title=Материальная культура Русской Мещеры. Ч. 1: Женская одежда: рубаха, понева, сарафан |trans-title=Material culture of Russian Meshchera. Part 1: Women's clothing: shirt, poniova, sarafan |series=Proceedings of the State Museum of the Central Industrial Region, 3 |language=ru |place=Moscow |publisher=Tip. "Tajninskij pečatnik" |date=1926 |oclc=490308640 |pages=62–64 |url=https://www.perunica.ru/tradicii/9947-kuftin-ba-materialnaja-kultura-russkoj-meschery-1926-pdf-rus.html}}</ref> Many can be seen on women's folk costumes from the Meshchera Lowlands.<ref name="Kuftin" />

According to some authors, Russian names popularly associated with the swastika include ''veterok'' ("breeze"),<ref name="echoMsk" /> ''ognevtsi'' ("little flames"), "geese", "hares" (a towel with a swastika was called a towel with "hares"), or "little horses".<ref name="Bogdasarov2002" /> The similar word "''koleso''" ("wheel") was used for rosette-shaped amulets, such as a hexafoil-thunder wheel 30px) in folklore, particularly in the Russian North.<ref name="Ivanits">{{cite book |surname=Ivanits |given=Linda J. |date=1989 |title=Russian Folk Belief |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |pages=14, 17 |isbn=978-0-7656-3088-9}}</ref><ref name="Garshol">{{cite journal |surname=Garshol |given=Lars Marius |date=2021 |title=Olav's Rose, Perun's Mark, Taranis's Wheel |url=https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol7/iss4/7/|journal=Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=121–151}}</ref>

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.<ref name="DAVIDSON83" />

<gallery> File:ReceBogaSwargi.svg|Ancient symbol the Hands of God or "Hands of Svarog" (Polish: ''Ręce Swaroga'')<ref>{{cite book |last=Grzegorzewic |first=Ziemisław |date=2016 |title=O Bogach i ludziach. Praktyka i teoria Rodzimowierstwa Słowiańskiego |trans-title=About the Gods and people. Practice and theory of Slavic Heathenism |language=pl |location=Olsztyn |publisher=Stowarzyszenie "Kołomir" |page=57 |isbn=978-83-940180-8-5}}</ref> File:Laimas krusts Lielvardes josta.jpg|Swastika on the Lielvārde Belt, Latvia File:POL COA Boreyko.svg|Boreyko coat of arms File:Pagan Lithuanian 13th-14th century ring with a solar symbol (found in Kernavė, Lithuania).jpg|Pagan Lithuanian 13th–14th century ring with a swastika found in Kernavė. The swastika has historically been widely used in Lithuanian jewelry, among other objects. </gallery>

===Southern and eastern Asia===

The icon has been of spiritual significance to Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.<ref name="p.97" /><ref name="britswast" /> The swastika is a sacred symbol in the Bön religion, native to Tibet.

====Hinduism==== {{multiple image | perrow = 4 | total_width = 300 | caption_align = center | title = Hindu swastikas | image1 = HinduSwastika.svg | caption1 = Hindu swastika | image2 = Sauwastika.svg | caption2 = Counter-clockwise swastika | image3 = Bengali Swastika Symbol half.svg | caption3 = Bengali swastika }}

The swastika is an important Hindu symbol.<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="p.97" /> The swastika symbol is commonly used before entrances or on doorways of homes or temples, to mark the starting page of financial statements,{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}} and mandalas constructed for rituals such as weddings or welcoming a newborn.<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="Lander2013p27" />

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://indiatribune.com/significance-of-swastika-in-diwali-celebrations/ |title=Significance of Swastika in Diwali celebrations |author= |date=27 October 2010 |website=indiatribune.com |access-date=11 November 2018 }}</ref>

In the diverse traditions within Hinduism, both clockwise and counterclockwise swastikas are found, each with different meanings. The counter-clockwise or left hand symbol is sometimes called ''sauwastika'' or ''sauvastika''.<ref name="britswast" /> 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.<ref name="britswast" /> A counter-clockwise swastika 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.<ref name="britswast" /> The symbol also represents activity, karma, motion, wheel, and in some contexts the lotus.<ref name="Sullivan2001p216" /><ref name="snodgrass82" /> According to Norman McClelland, its symbolism for motion and the Sun may be from shared prehistoric cultural roots.<ref>{{cite book|author= Norman C. McClelland |title= Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=S_Leq4U5ihkC&pg=PA263 |date=2010 |publisher= McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5675-8|pages=263–264}}</ref> {{clear}} <gallery class="center" caption="A swastika is typical in Hindu temples" mode="packed"> Jaipur 03-2016 38 Garh Ganesh Temple.jpg|A Hindu temple in Rajasthan, India हनुमान जयन्ति.png|A swastika design made using Diyas inside a Hindu temple A Hindu Swastika at Goa Lawah Temple Bali Indonesia.jpg|The Balinese Hindu pura Goa Lawah entrance Bali 014 - Ubud - swastika.jpg|A Balinese Hindu shrine </gallery>

====Buddhism==== [[file:500px photo (188688091).jpeg|thumb|upright=0.75|Swastika at the Main Hall of Zenkō-ji Buddhist temple (Japan)]] In Buddhism, the swastika is considered to symbolise the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.<ref name="britswast" /><ref name="silverblatt109" /> A left-facing swastika is often imprinted on the chest, feet, or palms of Buddha images. It is an iconic symbol for the Buddha in many parts of Asia and homologous with the ''dharma wheel''.<ref name="snodgrass82" /> The shape symbolises eternal cycling, a theme found in the ''samsara'' doctrine of Buddhism.<ref name="snodgrass82" />

The swastika symbol is common in esoteric tantric traditions of Buddhism, as well as in Hinduism, where it is associated with chakra theories and other meditative aids.<ref name="Lander2013p27" /> The clockwise symbol is more common, and contrasts with the counter-clockwise version common in the Tibetan Bon tradition and locally called ''yungdrung''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Chris Buckley|title=Tibetan Furniture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TDfrAAAAMAAJ|date=2005|publisher=Sambhala|isbn=978-1-891640-20-9|pages=5, 59, 68–70}}</ref>

In East Asia, the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities. It is commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artifacts, Buddhist texts, and schools founded by Buddhist groups. It also appears as a design or motif (either singularly or woven into a pattern) on textiles, architecture, and various decorative objects, symbolizing luck and good fortune. The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition, but in the left-facing orientation.<ref name="John Powers"/><ref name=lee86 />

====Jainism==== thumb|upright=0.75|Jain symbol (''Prateek'') containing a swastika [[File:In-jain.svg|thumb|left|upright=0.75|The official Jain flag with swastika; its four hands representing the four possible reincarnations of soul, including heaven, hell, human, and plant or animal.<ref name="jainqq.org"/>]] In Jainism, it is a symbol of the seventh ''tīrthaṅkara'', Suparśvanātha.<ref name="britswast" /> 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 ({{langx|hi|मिठाई}} {{IAST|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{{snd}}''svarga'' "heaven", ''naraka'' "hell", ''manushya'' "humanity" or ''tiryancha'' "as flora or fauna"{{snd}}before the soul attains ''moksha'' "salvation" as a ''siddha'', having ended the cycle of birth and death and become omniscient.<ref name="Cort 2001 17"/>{{clear left}}

====Prevalence in southern Asia====

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,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nepalnews.com/today/frontpic/2008/mar/mar30.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125203035/https://www.nepalnews.com/today/frontpic/2008/mar/mar30.htm |archive-date=25 January 2021 |title=daily picture (News from Nepal as it happens) |publisher=Nepalnews.com |access-date=2 March 2010 }}</ref> use the swastika in reliefs or logos.<ref name=lee86 /> 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. A left-facing swastika symbol is found in tantric rituals.<ref name=britswast />

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

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

In Bhutan, swastika motifs are found in architecture, fabrics, and religious ceremonies.

Among the predominantly Hindu population of Bali, in Indonesia, swastikas are 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.<ref name="lee86" />

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.

<gallery> File:Torajan pattern - pa'sepu' to Ronkong.svg|One of the common carving patterns of Torajan people in Indonesia. File:Ānanda Mārga Symbol.svg|The symbol of the Ananda Marga movement </gallery>

====Spread to eastern Asia==== {{Main|Chinese auspicious ornaments in textile and clothing#Wan|List of Chinese symbols, designs, and art motifs}}

The swastika is an auspicious symbol in China where it was introduced from India with Buddhism.<ref name="pacificasiamuseum">{{Cite web |title=Symbols – USC Pacific Asia Museum |url=https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/exhibitions/past/exhibitions-at-usc-pam-prior-to-2011/rank-and-style-power-dressing-in-imperial-china/index-to-resources/symbols/ |access-date=2022-05-23 |website=pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406201704/https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/exhibitions/past/exhibitions-at-usc-pam-prior-to-2011/rank-and-style-power-dressing-in-imperial-china/index-to-resources/symbols/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 693, during the Tang dynasty, it was declared as "the source of all good fortune" and was called {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} by Wu Zetian becoming a Chinese word.<ref name="pacificasiamuseum" /> The Chinese character for {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} ({{Lang-zh|link=no|p=wàn}}) is similar to a swastika in shape and has two different variations:《卐》and 《卍》. As the Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} ({{Lang-zh|c=卐|labels=no}} or {{Lang-zh|labels=no|c=卍}}) is homonym for the Chinese word of "ten thousand" ({{Lang-zh|c=万|labels=no}}) and "infinity", as such the Chinese character is itself a symbol of immortality<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chinese Symbols – USC Pacific Asia Museum |url=https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/exhibitions/past/online-exhibition-chinese-ceramics/chinese-symbols/ |access-date=2022-05-22 |website=pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu |archive-date=13 August 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250813102022/https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/exhibitions/past/online-exhibition-chinese-ceramics/chinese-symbols/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> and infinity.<ref name="Dusenberry-2004">{{Cite book |last=Dusenberry |first=Mary M. |title=Flowers, dragons and pine trees: Asian textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art |date=2004 |publisher=Hudson Hills Press |others=Carol Bier, Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art |isbn=1-55595-238-0 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=55016186}}</ref>{{Rp|page=175}} It was also a representation of longevity.<ref name="Dusenberry-2004" />{{Rp|page=175}}

The Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} could be used as a stand-alone《{{Lang-zh|c=卐|labels=no}}》or《{{Lang-zh|labels=no|c=卍}}》or as be used as pairs《{{Lang-zh|c=卐|labels=no}} {{Lang-zh|labels=no|c=卍}}》in Chinese visual arts, decorative arts, and clothing due to its auspicious connotation.<ref name="Dusenberry-2004" />{{Rp|page=175}}

Adding the character {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} ({{Lang-zh|c=卐|labels=no}} or {{Lang-zh|labels=no|c=卍}}) to other auspicious Chinese symbols or patterns can multiply that wish by 10,000 times.<ref name="pacificasiamuseum" /><ref name="Dusenberry-2004" />{{Rp|page=175}} It can be combined with other Chinese characters, such as the Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|shou}}《壽》for longevity where it is sometimes even integrated into the Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|shou}} to augment the meaning of longevity.<ref name="Dusenberry-2004" />{{Rp|page=175}}

The paired swastika symbols ({{Lang-zh|c=卐|labels=no}} and {{Lang-zh|labels=no|c=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".<ref>{{cite book | last =Kangxi Emperor | title =Kangxi Dictionary | date =1716 | location =Qing Empire | page =156 | language =zh-hant | url =http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0156.gif }}</ref>

The character {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} can also be stylized in the form of the {{Transliteration|zh|xiangyun}}, Chinese auspicious clouds.

[[File:Japanese_Crest_Maru_ni_Hidari_Mannji.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|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 to as the ''manji'' ({{lit|10,000-character}}). Since the Middle Ages, it has been used as a ''mon'' by various Japanese families, such as the Tsugaru clan, the Hachisuka clan, and around 60 clans that belong to the Tokugawa clan.<ref>(Japanese) Hitoshi Takazawa, ''Encyclopedia of Kamon'', Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2008. {{ISBN|978-4-490-10738-8}}.</ref> 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|date=September 2021}}

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gsi.go.jp/MAPSAKUSEI/25000SAKUSEI/zushiki-zushiki.html#tatemono |script-title=ja:平成14年2万5千分1地形図図式 |publisher=Geospatial Information Authority of Japan |language=ja |trans-title=2002 1:25000 Topographical Map Scheme |access-date=21 April 2012 |archive-date=19 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419205803/http://www.gsi.go.jp/MAPSAKUSEI/25000SAKUSEI/zushiki-zushiki.html#tatemono }}</ref> Japan has considered changing this due to occasional controversy and misunderstanding by foreigners.<ref name="telegraph290721">{{Cite web|title=Japan to remove swastikas from maps as tourists 'think they are Nazi symbols'|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12105102/Japan-to-remove-swastikas-from-maps-as-tourists-think-they-are-Nazi-symbols.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12105102/Japan-to-remove-swastikas-from-maps-as-tourists-think-they-are-Nazi-symbols.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=2021-09-29|website=www.telegraph.co.uk|date=18 January 2016 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> The symbol is sometimes censored in international versions of Japanese works, such as anime.<ref name="CBR-2021">{{Cite web|date=2021-07-21|title=Buddhist Manji Removed from Crunchyroll's Release of Tokyo Revengers|url=https://www.cbr.com/buddhist-manji-crunchyroll-tokyo-revengers/|access-date=2021-09-29|website=CBR|language=en-US}}</ref> 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.<ref name="telegraph290721" /><ref name="CBR-2021" />

thumb|left |upright=0.5 |Sayagata pattern In Chinese and Japanese art, swastikas are often found as part of a repeating pattern. One common pattern, called ''sayagata'' in Japanese, comprises left- and right-facing swastikas joined by lines.<ref>"Sayagata 紗綾形". ''[http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/s/sayagata.htm Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System]''. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050404210851/http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/s/sayagata.htm |date=4 April 2005 }}</ref> 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|date=June 2019}}

Many Chinese religions make use of swastika symbols, 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 and then in Taiwan. They continue to use the red swastika as their symbol.<ref>{{cite book |title=Handbook on Religion in China |editor=Stephan Feuchtwang |date=2020 |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |pages=36, 194, 203 |isbn=978-1-78643-796-9}}</ref>

The Falun Gong qigong movement, founded in China in the early 1990s, uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with yin-and-yang symbols.<ref>{{cite book |author=Daniel Rancour-Laferriere |date=2017 |title=The Sign of the Cross: From Golgotha to Genocide |publisher=Routledge |page=167 |isbn=978-1-351-47421-4 }}</ref>

<gallery> File:Hasekura Tsunenaga banner.svg|Flag bearing the coat of arms of Hasekura Tsunenaga File:Shou Swastika.svg|Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|wan}} integrated into one of the stylistic versions of the Chinese character {{Transliteration|zh|shou}} File:Robe, dragon, man's (AM 9838-33).jpg|Paired character wan on a dragon robe, Qing dynasty File:Swastika-seoel (xndr).jpg|Swastika on a temple in Korea File:Wanguo Daodehui.svg|Symbol of Shanrendao, a Confucian-Taoism religious movement in Northeast China File:Red swastika flag.svg|Flag of the Red Swastika Society, the largest emergency relief group in China during World War II File:Saisiyat_pattern_of_the_Goddess_of_Thunder.jpg|The pattern of the Goddess of Thunder (wa:on) of Saisiyat people in Taiwan. File:Falun Gong emblem.svg|The symbol of the Falun Gong movement File:Flag of Vietnamese Democratic Socialist Party.svg|Flag of the Vietnamese Democratic Socialist Party, a Hòa Hảo political party in South Vietnam File:Sayagata motives on wall.jpg|A wall with both left- and right-facing, rotated 45° swastikas on a building in China. </gallery>

===Islamic usage=== [[File:Swastika Chashmai Ayyub (Vobkent).jpg|thumb|left|Spandrels of Chashmai Ayyub,Vobkent]] The swastika was used in pre-Islamic lands and continued to be used into the Islamic era. Some of its earliest documented uses date back to the Palaces of the Umayyad Caliphs Walid (705–715) and Hisham (724–743). It would subsequently under the Abbasids on the gates of Raqqa, in Muslim Spain at Cordoba and particularly in Persianate world (Anatolia to India) from the Seljuk period (1037–1194) onwards. It was also used on textiles and metalwork.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zidan |first=Boussy |date=2020-01-01 |title=The Concept and Utilization of Swastika ‘Hooked Cross’ on Islamic Artefacts |url=https://jguaa2.journals.ekb.eg/article_68922.html |journal=Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=1–26 |doi=10.21608/jguaa2.2020.18018.1024 |issn=2537-0278}}</ref> Its use on mausoleums, such as the Gonbad-e-Sorkh (1147), seems to have been used to symbolize the soul and resurrection.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sattarnezhad |first=Saied |last2=Parvin |first2=Samad |last3=Hendiani |first3=Elham |date=2020 |title=The Symbology of Swastika in the Gonbad-e-Sorkh Tomb |url=https://codrulcosminului.usv.ro/article-1-vol-26-1-2020/ |journal=Codrul Cosminului |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=7–18 |doi=10.4316/CC.2020.01.001 |issn=1224-032X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=رضالو |first=رضا |last2=آیراملو |first2=یحیی |last3=میرزاآقاجانی |first3=اسدالله |date=2013 |title=مطالعه سیرتحول نقوش چلیپایی در تزیینات معماری دوره اسلامی ایران و زیبایی شناسی و نمادشناسی آن |url=https://doi.org/10.22059/jfava.2013.36267 |journal=نشریه هنرهای زیبا- هنرهای تجسمی |volume=18 |issue=1 |doi=10.22059/jfava.2013.36267}}</ref> Its use on gateways may have been used as an ancient sun symbol, symbolising the solstice as the gateway of heaven.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burckhardt |first=Titus |title=Art of Islam, Language and Meaning: Commemorative Edition |date=2009 |publisher=World Wisdom, Incorporated |others=Seyyed Hussein Nasr, Jean-Louis Michon |isbn=978-1-933316-65-9 |edition= |series=Sacred Art in Tradition Series |location=New York |pages=148}}</ref> {{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=200|align=centre | image1 = Kufic Muhammad.svg | caption1= Four Muhammad/Ali motifs | image2 = Four Muhammad-Ali Madrasa al-Rukniyya Damascus.jpg | caption2= Motif in Al-Rukniyah Madrasa }} In the 13th century Mamluk lands, a complex square Kufic design known as the 'Four Muhammad/Ali' became prominent; featuring a fourfold repetition of 'Muhammad' which can simultaneously be read as 'Ali' in the interstices, forming a swastika in the centre. The motif became very popular, spreading widely throughout Ottoman lands and to Iran.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sakkal |first=Mamoun |date=2019 |title=Square Kufic Tessellations |journal=Abgadiyat |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=36–65 |doi=10.1163/22138609-01401004 |url=https://www.academia.edu/106985378/Square_Kufic_Tessellations_}}</ref> <gallery> File:Swastika Konya Sircali Medresesi.jpg|Sırçalı Medrese File:Swastika Córdoba Cathedral Puerta del Batisterio.jpg|Cordoba Mosque File:Quadruple Swastika Kukeldash Madrasah (Tashkent).jpg|Kukeldash Madrasah File:Tach Khaouli harem 04.jpg|Toshhovli Palace, Khiva File:Swastika Akbar's Tomb.jpg|Akbar's Tomb File:Swastikas Kashgar - Afaq Khoja Mausoleum gate 2.jpg|Main gate of Afaq Khoja Mausoleum covered in swastikas, Kashgar </gallery>

===Classical Europe===

[[File:Ottův slovník naučný - obrázek č. 2643.svg|thumb|upright=0.75|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.<ref>Biers, W.R. 1996. ''The Archaeology of Greece'', p. 130. Cornell University Press, Ithaca/London.</ref> 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 several names, especially ''gammadion'',<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/image?lookup=1990.26.0822 |title=Perseus:image:1990.26.0822 |website=Perseus.tufts.edu |date=26 February 1990 |access-date=2010-03-02}}</ref> 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. Swastikas 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.<ref>Robert Ferré. "[http://www.labyrinth-enterprises.com/amiens.html Amiens Cathedral] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080207145025/http://www.labyrinth-enterprises.com/amiens.html |date=7 February 2008 }}". ''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.</ref> A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif,<ref>Gary Malkin. "[http://romanbristol.tripod.com/avon/tockington.html Tockington Park Roman Villa]{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040521150446/http://romanbristol.tripod.com/avon/tockington.html |date=21 May 2004 }}". ''The Area of Bristol in Roman Times''. 9{{spaces}}December 2002.</ref> 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.<ref>Lara Nagy, Jane Vadnal, "Glossary Medieval Art and Architecture", [http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/greekkey.htm "Greek key or meander"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060920012603/http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/greekkey.htm |date=20 September 2006 }}, University of Pittsburgh 1997–1998.</ref>

<gallery> File:Tetraskele.svg|Greek tetraskelion (lauburu) Greek Silver Stater of Corinth.jpg|Swastika on a Greek silver stater coin from Corinth, 6th century BCE File:Ancient Roman Mosaics Villa Romana La Olmeda 007 Pedrosa De La Vega - Saldaña (Palencia).JPG|Roman mosaic of La Olmeda, Spain </gallery>

[[File:Stele daunienne mariemont.JPG|thumb|upright|610-550 BC Daunian funerary stele from Apulia showing Paleo-Balkan tattooing. The stele depicts crosses and swastikas.]]

Swastikas were widespread among the Illyrians, symbolising the Sun and the fire. The Sun cult was the main Illyrian cult; a swastika in clockwise motion is interpreted in particular as a representation of the movement of the Sun.<ref name="Stipčević"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Treimer|first=Karl|editor=Henrik Barić |title=Arhiv za Arbanasku starinu, jezik i etnologiju|volume=I|chapter=Zur Rückerschliessung der illyrischen Götterwelt und ihre Bedeutung für die südslawische Philologie|pages=27–33|publisher=R. Trofenik|year=1971|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dTIBAAAAMAAJ}} p. 32.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Tirta|first=Mark|title=Mitologjia ndër shqiptarë|language=sq|editor=Petrit Bezhani|publisher=Mësonjëtorja|year=2004|place=Tirana|isbn=99927-938-9-9}} pp. 69–70, 75.</ref>

The swastika has been preserved by the Albanians since Illyrian times as a pagan symbol commonly found in a variety of contexts of Albanian folk art, including traditional tattooing, grave art, jewellery, clothes, and house carvings. The swastika ({{langx|sq|kryqi grepç}} or {{lang|sq|kryqi i thyer}}, "hooked cross") and other crosses in Albanian tradition represent the Sun (Dielli) and the fire (zjarri, evidently called with the theonym Enji). In Albanian paganism, fire is regarded as the offspring of the Sun and fire calendar rituals are practiced to give strength to the Sun and to ward off evil.{{sfn|Treimer|1971|p=32}}{{sfn|Tirta|2004|pp=69–70, 75, 80, 113, 116, 250}}

===Medieval and early modern Europe===

====Middle Ages====

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 Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, dating from the 12th century. They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on the so-called Sarcophagus of Stilicho in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n8YNAQAAIAAJ&q=Basilica+of+St.+Ambrose+in+Milan+swastika&pg=PA541|title=The Open Court|last=Carus|first=Paul|date=1907|publisher=Open Court Publishing Company|language=en}}</ref>

A ceiling painted in 1910 in the Grenoble Archaeological Museum (the former church of St Laurent) has many swastikas. A proposed direct link between it and a swastika floor mosaic in the Amiens Cathedral, which was built on top of a pagan site at Amiens, France, in the 13th century, is considered{{Who|date=February 2025}} 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, swastika symbols were also popular with the nobility. Several noble houses, e.g., Boreyko, Borzym, and Radziechowski from Ruthenia, also had swastikas as their coat of arms. The family reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries, and its crest appears in many heraldic books from that period.

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, a swastika was one of the Russian Empire's symbols and was used on coinage as a backdrop to the Russian eagle.<ref name="ruskolan.xpomo.com" />

<gallery class="center"> File:Bashkort symbol of Sun.svg|Bashkirs symbol of the sun and fertility File:ShaveyZion1.jpg|Mosaic swastika in an excavated Byzantine church in Shavei Tzion, (Israel) File:Jewish swastika.jpg|A swastika composed of Hebrew letters as a mystical symbol from the Jewish Kabbalistic work "Parashat Eliezer", from the 18th century or earlier File:Winchestercathedralheadonwilliamedingtontomb crop.jpg|Swastikas on the vestments of the effigy of Bishop William Edington (d. 1366) in Winchester Cathedral File:Swastika Stone, Ilkley (reproduction) - geograph.org.uk - 48282.jpg|The Victorian-era reproduction of the Swastika Stone on Ilkley Moor, which sits near the original to aid visitors in interpreting the carving </gallery>

====Rediscovery by Heinrich Schliemann====

At Troy near the Dardanelles, Heinrich Schliemann's 1871–1875 archaeological excavations discovered objects decorated with swastikas.<ref name="Schliemann 1875">{{Cite book |last=Schliemann |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/39020025953681-troyanditsremai |title=Troy and Its Remains; A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries Made on the Site of Ilium, and in the Trojan Plain |publisher=John Murray |year=1875 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Philip |location=London |language=English |author-link=Heinrich Schliemann}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=101–105}}<ref name="Boxer-2000" /><ref name="Heller-2000" />{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Quinn-1994" />{{Rp|page=31}} Hearing of this, the director of the French School at Athens, Émile-Louis Burnouf, wrote to Schliemann in 1872, stating "the Swastika should be regarded as a sign of the Aryan race". Burnouf told Schliemann that "It should also be noted that the Jews have completely rejected it".<ref name="Gere-2006">{{Cite book |last=Gere |first=Cathy |url=http://archive.org/details/tombofagamemnon0000gere |title=The Tomb of Agamemnon |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-674-02170-9 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref>{{Rp|page=89}} Accordingly, Schliemann believed the Trojans to have been Aryans: "The primitive Trojans, therefore, belonged to the Aryan race, which is further sufficiently proved by the symbols on the round terra-cottas".<ref name="Schliemann 1875"/>{{Rp|page=157}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=90}} Schliemann accepted Burnouf's interpretation.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=89}} {{Blockquote|text=This winter, I have read in Athens many excellent works of celebrated scholars on Indian antiquities, especially Adalbert Kuhn, {{lang|de|Die Herakunft des Feuers}}; Max Müller's ''Essays''; Émile Burnouf, {{lang|fr|La Science des Religions}} and {{lang|fr|Essai sur le Vêda}}; as well as several works by Eugène Burnouf; and I now perceive that these crosses upon the Trojan terra-cottas are of the highest importance to archæology.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875"/>{{Rp|page=101}}}}

Schliemann believed that the use of swastikas spread widely across Eurasia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yE7fEAAAQBAJ |title=Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth |publisher=Hachette India |year=2023 |isbn=978-93-5731-266-0 |language=en |author-link=Charles Allen (writer)}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=... I am now able to prove that ... the 卍, which I find in Émile Burnouf's Sanscrit lexicon, under the name of "''suastika''," and with the meaning {{lang|grc|εὖ ἐστι}}, or as the sign of good wishes, were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious symbols of the very greatest importance among the early progenitors of the Aryan races in Bactria and in the villages of the Oxus, at a time when Germans, Indians, Pelasgians, Celts, Persians, Slavonians and Iranians still formed one nation and spoke one language.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875" />{{Rp|page=|pages=101–102}}}}

Schliemann established a link between the swastika and Germany. He connected objects he excavated at Troy to objects bearing swastikas found in Germany near Königswalde on the Oder.<ref name="Boxer-2000">{{Cite news |last=Boxer |first=Sarah |date=2000-06-29 |title=One of the World's Great Symbols Strives for a Comeback |at="Think Tank" section |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900tank-swastika.html |access-date=2023-11-25}}</ref><ref name="Heller-2000">{{Cite book |last=Heller |first=Steven |url=http://archive.org/details/swastikasymbolbe0000hell |title=The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? |date=2000 |publisher=Allworth Press |isbn=978-1-58115-041-4 |location=New York}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Quinn-1994">{{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=Malcolm |url=http://archive.org/details/swastikaconstruc0000quin |title=The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-415-10095-3 |location=London, New York}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=90}} [[File:Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 3.1871, Taf. VI (cropped).png|thumb|Lithograph of potsherds found at Bishop's Island ({{Langx|de|link=no|Bischofsinsel}}) near Königswalde and published in ''{{Ill|Zeitschrift für Ethnologie|de}}'' in 1871. Schliemann believed the motif on the potsherd in figure 1 to be a swastika.]] {{Blockquote|text=For I recognise at the first glance the "suastika" upon one of those three pot bottoms, which were discovered on Bishop's Island near Königswalde on the right bank of the Oder, and have given rise to very many learned discussions, while no one recognised the mark as that exceedingly significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875" />{{Rp|page=102}}}}

Sarah Boxer, in an article in 2000 in ''The New York Times'', described this as a "fateful link".<ref name="Boxer-2000" /> According to Steven Heller, "Schliemann presumed that the swastika was a religious symbol of his German ancestors which linked ancient Teutons, Homeric Greeks and Vedic India".<ref name="Heller-2000" />{{Rp|page=31}} According to Bernard Mees, "Of all of the pre-runic symbols, the swastika has always been the most popular among scholars" and "The origin of swastika studies must be traced to the excitement generated by the archaeological finds of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy".{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=57}}

After his excavations at Troy, Schliemann began digging at Mycenae. According to Cathy Gere, "Having burdened the swastika symbol with such cultural, religious and racial significance in ''Troy and Its Remains'', it was incumbent on Schliemann to find the symbol repeated at Mycenae, but its occurrence turned out to be disappointingly infrequent".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Gere writes that "He did his best with what he had":<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}}

{{Blockquote|text=The cross with the marks of four nails may often be seen; as well as the 卍, which is usually also represented with four points indicating the four nails, thus ࿘. These signs cannot but represent the ''suastika'', formed by two pieces of wood, which were laid across and fixed with four nails, and in the joint of which the holy fire was produced by friction by a third piece of wood. But both the cross and the 卍 occur for the most part only on the vases with geometrical patterns.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Mycenæ''|source=1878<ref name="Schliemann 1878">{{Cite book |last=Schliemann |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/mycenaenarrativ00schl |title=Mycenæ: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns |publisher=John Murray|year=1878 |location=London |language=English |author-link=Heinrich Schliemann}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=66–68}}}}

Gere points out that although Schliemann wrote that the motif "may often be seen", his 1878 book ''Mycenæ'' contained no illustrations of examples.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Schliemann described "a small and thick terra-cotta disk" on which "are engraved a number of 卍's, the sign which occurs so frequently in the ruins of Troy", but as Gere notes, he did not publish an illustration.<ref name="Schliemann 1878" />{{Rp|page=77}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} [[File:Gold roundels from Grave Circle A, Grave III 01.jpg|thumb|Gold ''repoussé'' roundel from grave III of Grave Circle A, whose central motif Schliemann thought "derived" from the swastika.<ref name="Schliemann 1878"/>{{Rp|page=|pages=165–166}}]] Among the gold grave goods at Grave Circles A and B was a ''repoussé'' roundel in grave III of Grave Circle A, the ornamentation of which Schliemann thought was "derived" from the swastika: {{Blockquote|text=The curious ornamentation in the centre, which so often recurs here, seems to me to be derived from the ࿘, the more so as the points which are thought to be the marks of the nails, are seldom missing; the artist has only added two more arms and curved all of them.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Mycenæ''|source=1878<ref name="Schliemann 1878" />{{Rp|page=|pages=165–166}}}}

According to Gere, this motif is "completely dissimilar" to the swastika, and that Schliemann was "straining desperately after the same connection".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Nevertheless, the Mycenaean Greeks and the Trojan people both came to be identified as representatives of the Aryan race: "Despite the difficulties with linking the symbolism of Troy and Mycenae, the common Aryan roots of the two peoples became something of a truism".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}}

The house Schliemann had had built in Panepistimiou Street in Athens by 1880, Iliou Melathron, is decorated with swastika symbols and motifs in numerous places, including the ironwork railing and gates, the window bars, the ceiling fresco of the entrance hall, and the entire floor of one room.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|pages=117–123}}

Following Schliemann, academic studies on the swastika were published by {{Ill|Ludvig Müller (numismatist)|lt=Ludvig Müller|da|Ludvig Müller (numismatiker)}}, Michał Żmigrodzki, Eugène Goblet d'Alviella, Thomas Wilson, Oscar Montelius and Joseph Déchelette.{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=57}}

==== German occultism and pan-German nationalism ==== On 24 June 1875, Guido von List commemorated the 1500th anniversary of the German victory over the Roman Empire at the Battle of Carnuntum by burying a swastika of eight wine bottles beneath the {{Lang|de|Heidentor|italic=no}} ({{Lit.|Heathens' Gate}}) in the ruins of Carnuntum.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004">{{Cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke |url=https://archive.org/details/TheOccultRootsOfNazism_201602 |title=The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2004 |isbn=1-86064-973-4 |location=London |language=English |orig-year=1985}}</ref>{{Rp|page=35}} In 1891, List began to claim that heraldry's division of the field was derived from the shapes of runes.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=71}} He claimed that the medieval German {{Lang|de|Vehmgericht}} was a survival of the pre-Christian Armanist priest-kings and that the cryptic letters "SSGG" inscribed on vehmic knives represented a double sig rune followed by two swastikas.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=76}}

In 1897, Max Ferdinand Sebaldt von Werth published {{Lang|de|Wanidis}} and {{Lang|de|Sexualreligion}}, which according to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke in ''The Occult Roots of Nazism'', "described the sexual-religion of the Aryans, a sacred practice of eugenics designed to maintain the purity of the race".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=51}} Both works were "illustrated with the magical curved-armed armed swastika".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=51}} Influenced by Sebaldt, List published in ''{{Interlanguage link|Der Scherer – erstes illustriertes Tiroler Witzblatt|de}}'' an article ("{{Lang|de|Germanischer Lichtdienst}}") which claimed the swastika was a sacred symbol of the Aryans representing the "fire-whisk" ({{Lang|de|Feuerquirl}}) with which the creator deity {{Lang|de|Mundelföri|italic=no}} had begun the world.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=52}} In September 1903, List published an article discussing the creation of the universe, the "old-Aryan sexual religion", reincarnation, karma, "Wotanism", and "Armanism" from his theosophical viewpoint, which was illustrated by triskelions and various swastikas in the Viennese occult journal {{Lang|de|Die Gnosis}}.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=41, 52}} According to Goodrick-Clarke, "This article marked the first stage in List's articulation of a Germanic occult religion, the principal concern of which was racial purity".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=52}}

Between 1905 and 1907, List published articles in the {{Lang|de|Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung}} arguing that the swastika, the triskelion, and the sun-wheel were all "Armanist" occult symbols (Armanen runes) concealed in German heraldry, and in 1908 his {{Lang|de|Das Geheimnis der Runen}} ({{Lit.|''The Secret of the Runes''}}) argued that the swastika or Armanen rune "Gibor" was represented in blazons including different heraldic crosses and kinked versions of the ordinaries pale, bend, and fess.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=72}} List argued that the swastika, triskelion, and other Armanen runes had been concealed in 15th-century rose windows and curvilinear tracery in late Gothic architecture.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=74}} [[File:Table_of_the_Secret_of_the_Runes_by_Guido_von_List.png|thumb|upright=0.75|Table from Guido von List's 1908 {{Lang|de|Das Geheimnis der Runen}} ({{Lit.|''The Secret of the Runes''}}) illustrating his ideas about swastikas and his Ariosophist Armanen runes in German heraldry and Gothic architecture.]] List's 1908 book {{Lang|de|Die Rita der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Rite of the Ario-Germans''}}) featured chapter headings with triskelions, swastikas, and other symbols. The work laid out his belief in an ancient priestly {{Lang|de|Armanenschaft}} of Wotanist initiates and identified the "Ario-Germans" as a "race" identical with Helena Blavatsky's theosophical fifth "root race".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=52–53}} List's 1910 {{Lang|de|Die Religion der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Religion of the Ario-Germans''}}) discussed Yuga cycles and the Kali Yuga, proposing a mathematical relationship with the {{Lang|non|Grímnismál}} of the {{Lang|non|Edda|italic=no}}.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=53|pages=}} His {{Lang|de|Die Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Picture-Writing of the Ario-Germans''}}) of the same year connected Blavatsky's Hindu-inspired cosmic cycles (kalpas) with the realms of Muspelheim ({{Lang|de|Muspilheim}}), Asgard, Vanaheimr ({{Lang|de|Wanenheim}}), and Midgard, each with a corresponding symbol. Blavatsky's first Astral and second Hyperborean races List connected with the descendants of Ymir and Orgelmir, her third Lemurian race was his race of Thrudgelmir, her fourth Atlantean race his descendants of Bergelmir, and Blavatsky's fifth root race List identified as the "Ario-Germans".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=53–54}} According to Goodrick-Clarke, List again argued that the clockwise swastika was a holy symbol of the "Ario-Germans":

{{Blockquote|text=A series of anti-clockwise triskelions and swastikas and inverted triangles symbolized stages of cosmic evolution in the downsweep of the cycle (i.e., the evolution from unity to multiplicity), while their clockwise and upright counterparts connoted the return path to the godhead. The skewed super-imposition of these 'falling' and 'rising' sigils created complex sigils like the hexagram and the Maltese Cross. List asserted that these latter symbols were utterly sacred, because they embraced the two antithetical forces of all creation: as the representative symbols of the zenith of multiplicity at the outermost limit of the cycle, they denoted the Ario-German god-man, the highest form of life ever to evolve in the universe.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=54|pages=}}}} List's 1914 {{Lang|de|Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Proto-Language of the Ario-Germans''}}) adopted the geological ideas of theosophist William Scott-Elliot and claimed that fragments of Atlantis remained part of Europe, pointing to rocking stones in Lower Austria and European megaliths as evidence. From Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, List took on occult ideas about the Aryan homeland Arktogäa (a lost polar continent), and struggle the Ario-German master races and the non-Aryan slave races, and the Knights Templar.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=54–55}} List believed that the Templars had been adepts of "Armanism" during the Middle Ages' Christian ascendancy, and that they had been suppressed for worshipping the Maltese cross that List believed to be derived from a superimposed clockwise and counter-clockwise swastika and which he identified with Baphomet.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=61–62}} Members of the inner circle of the Guido von List Society, the {{Lang|de|Hoher Armanen-Orden|italic=no}} (HAO), expressed their membership of the occult priesthood with swastikas. Heinrich Winter, Friedrich Oskar Wannieck, and Georg Hauerstein senior's first wife all had their graves decorated with swastikas.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=65}}[[File:Flag of the Order of New Templars.svg|thumb|upright=0.75|Flag of the Order of the New Templars designed 1907 with a swastika used as ''völkisch'' (German ethno-nationalist) symbol]]Lanz, a former Cistercian, established the Order of the New Templars or ONT ({{Lang|la|Ordo Novi Templi}} {{Lit|Order of the New Temple}}) in imitation of the Knights Templar whose monastic rule had been written by the Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux and whom Lanz believed had aimed to establish "a Greater Germanic order-state, which would encompass the entire Mediterranean area and extend its sphere of influence deep into the Middle East" whose eventual suppression had been a triumph of racial inferiority over the "Ario-Christian" eugenics practised by the Templars.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=108}} As the headquarters of his revived Templar Order and as a museum of Aryan anthropology, Lanz bought {{Interlanguage link|Burg Werfenstein|de}} on the Danube, where on Christmas Day 1907, he hoisted his heraldic banner (''gules'', an eagle's wing ''argent'') and the flag of the ONT: a swastika ''gules'' surrounded by four fleurs-de-lis ''azure'' on a field ''or''.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=106, 109, 113}}

====Post-Schliemann popularity==== {{See also|Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century}}

The swastika symbol became a popular symbol in the Western world in the early 20th century, and was often used for ornamentation. It symbolised many things to Europeans, most commonly good luck and auspiciousness.<ref name=holocaust2009 />

The Benedictine choir school at Lambach Abbey, Upper Austria, which Hitler attended for several months as a boy, had a swastika chiselled 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 Theoderich Hagn, abbot of the monastery in Lambach, which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field.<ref>[http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/1889-99t.htm Holocaust Chronology] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120801224433/http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/1889-99t.htm |date=1 August 2012 }}</ref>

The British author and poet Rudyard Kipling used the symbol on the cover art of several of his works, including ''The Five Nations'' (1903), which pairs it with an elephant. Once Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power, Kipling ordered that swastikas should no longer adorn his books.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} In 1927, a red swastika defaced by a Union Jack was proposed as a flag for the Union of South Africa.<ref>{{cite book |first=William |last=Crampton |title=The World of Flags |date=1990 |publisher=Studio Additions |pages=154–155 |isbn=1-85170-426-4 }}</ref>

The logo of H/f. Eimskipafjelag Íslands<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.eimskip.is/um-eimskip/saga-eimskips/|title=Saga Eimskips|website=Eimskip|language=en|access-date=2019-06-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821050702/https://www.eimskip.is/um-eimskip/saga-eimskips/|archive-date=21 August 2018}}</ref> was a swastika, called "Thor's hammer", from its founding in 1914 until the Second World War, when it was discontinued and changed to read only the letters Eimskip.

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.

[[File:Finnish air force roundel 1934-1945 border.svg|thumb|upright=.5|Blue swastika insignia as well as black swastika emblem of the Finnish Air Force (1934–1945)]]

Also, the insignias of the Cross of Liberty, designed by Gallen-Kallela in 1918, have swastikas. The 3rd class Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the standard of the President of Finland, who is the grand master of the order, too.<ref>[http://www.tpk.fi/public/default.aspx?nodeid=41443&culture=en-US&contentlan=2 Flag] {{webarchive|url= https://archive.today/20110720194040/http://www.tpk.fi/public/default.aspx?nodeid=41443&culture=en-US&contentlan=2 |date=20 July 2011 }} The President of the Republic Of Finland</ref>

thumb|upright=.5|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fotw.info/flags/lv%5Eair.html|title=Latvia – Airforce Flag and Aircraft Marking|website=fotw.info|access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IPv1gjLhtZ4C&q=latvian+army+swastika&pg=PA39|title=Latvia in World War II|last=Lumans|first=Valdis O.|date=2006|publisher=Fordham Univ Press|isbn=978-0-8232-2627-6|page=39|language=en}}</ref> The cross itself was maroon on a white background, mirroring the colours of the Latvian flag. Earlier versions pointed counterclockwise, while later versions pointed clockwise and eliminated the white background.<ref>[http://www.insigniamag.com/afs005.html Latvian Air Force 1918–1940] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120217215841/http://www.insigniamag.com/afs005.html |date=17 February 2012 }}. Retrieved 30 September 2008.</ref><ref>[http://www.latvianaviation.com Spārnota Latvija] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204035446/http://latvianaviation.com/ |date=4 February 2012 }}. Retrieved 30 September 2008.</ref> Various other Latvian Army units and the Latvian War College<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vitber.lv/lv/lot/20294|title=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|website=Vitber|language=lv|access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref> (the predecessor of the National Defence Academy) also had adopted the symbol in their battle flags and insignia during the Latvian War of Independence.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://latvianmilitaryhistory.wordpress.lv/2012/10/01/latvijas-armijas-nacionalo-brunoto-speku-un-citi-karogi/|title=Latvijas armijas, Nacionālo Bruņoto Spēku un citu iestāžu karogi.|date=2012-10-01|work=latvianmilitaryhistory|access-date=2018-11-08|language=lv}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lnvm.lv/en/?p=1242|title=Exhibition "The Lāčplēsis Military Order" ← National History Museum of Latvia|website=lnvm.lv|language=en-US|access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref> The Pērkonkrusts, an ultra-nationalist political organisation active in the 1930s, also used the fire cross as one of its symbols.

The swastika symbol (Lithuanian: ''sūkurėlis'') is a traditional Baltic ornament,<ref name="Guénon-2001" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.efhr.eu/2012/02/03/swastika-historical-heritage-of-lithuania/|title=Swastika – historical heritage of Lithuania |website=European Foundation of Human Rights|date=3 February 2012 |access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref> found on relics dating from at least the 13th century.<ref name="Sarmatas">{{cite web|url=http://www.sarmatas.lt/02/svastika-musu-proteviu-lietuviu-simbolis/|title=Svastika Mūsų protėvių lietuvių simbolis |trans-title=Swastika The symbol of our Lithuanian ancestors |website=sarmatas.lt|date=7 February 2010|language=lt|access-date=2018-11-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100303130833/http://www.sarmatas.lt/02/svastika-musu-proteviu-lietuviu-simbolis/ |archive-date=2010-03-03}}</ref> The ''sūkurėlis'' for Lithuanians represents the history and memory of their Lithuanian ancestors as well as the Baltic people at large.<ref name="Sarmatas"/> There are monuments in Lithuania, such as the Freedom Monument in Rokiškis, where swastikas can be found.<ref name="Sarmatas" /> In Lithuania, the swastika was first used on a flag in 1924 by the Lithuanian Nationalist Union.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vle.lt/straipsnis/svastika-2/|title=svastika|website=vle.lt}}</ref>

Starting in 1917, Mikal Sylten's staunchly antisemitic periodical, ''Nationalt Tidsskrift'' took up the swastika as a symbol, three years before Adolf Hitler chose to do so.<ref name="ØS">{{cite book|title=Fra Hitler til Quisling|last=Sørensen |first=Øystein |author-link=Øystein Sørensen |date=1989 |publisher=J.W. Cappelens Forlag |location=Oslo|isbn=82-02-11992-8 |pages=93–94 }}</ref>

The left-handed swastika was a favourite 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,<ref>{{cite book |surname=Rollin |given=Henri |date=1939 |title=L'Apocalypse de notre temps |language=fr |place=Paris |publisher=Gallimard |pages=61–62}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |surname=Gilliard |given=Pierre  |date=1923 |title=Thirteen Years at the Russian Court |publisher=Online open source |url=http://www.alexanderpalace.org/2006pierre/introduction.html |via=Alexanderpalace.org}}</ref>

The Russian Provisional Government of 1917 printed several new banknotes with right-facing, diagonally rotated swastikas in their centres.<ref>{{cite web |title=Русские бумажные деньги, цену денежных знаков России, местных и частных денежных знаков, боны и валюты. |trans-title=Russian paper money, price list of Russia banknotes, currency, local and private banknotes |language=ru |url=http://atsnotes.com/banknotes/russia.html |website=atsnotes.com}}</ref> The banknote design was initially intended for the Mongolian national bank but was re-purposed for Russian rubles after the February revolution. Swastikas were depicted, and some Soviet credit cards (sovznaks) were printed with clichés in circulation in 1918–1922.<ref>{{cite web |author=Nikolaiev, R. |url=http://www.bonistikaweb.ru/miniatur/1992-7.htm |title=Советские "кредитки" со свастикой? |trans-title=Soviet "credit cards" with a swastika? |language=ru |website=bonistikaweb.ru |access-date=2022-05-20 |archive-date=10 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100810135611/http://www.bonistikaweb.ru/miniatur/1992-7.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

During the Russian Civil War, swastikas were 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.<ref>{{cite journal |surname=Tsvetkov |given=Vasily |title=Р. Ф. Унгерн и попытки организации центра антибольшевистского сопротивления в Монголии (1918–1921 годы). 1-я часть |trans-title=R. F. Ungern and attempts to organize a center of anti-Bolshevik resistance in Mongolia (1918–1921). Part 1 |journal=Новый исторический вестник [New Historical Bulletin] |language=ru |date=2015 |volume=45 |number=3 |pages=145–172}}</ref> The Red Army's ethnic Kalmyk units wore distinct armbands featuring a swastika with "РСФСР" (Roman: "RSFSR") inscriptions on them.<ref>{{cite web |title=Приказ войскам Юго-Восточного фронта от 03.11.1919 № 213 |trans-title=Order to the troops of the South-Eastern Front dated 11/03/1919 No. 213 |url=https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC_%D0%AE%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D1%84%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0_%D0%BE%D1%82_03.11.1919_%E2%84%96_213 |website=ru.wikisource.org |language=ru}}</ref>

====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 was also incorporated into a large number of new religious movements which were established in the West in the modern period.

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."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ts-adyar.org/content/emblem-or-seal|title=Emblem or the Seal | TS Adyar|website=www.ts-adyar.org}}</ref>

The Raëlian Movement, whose adherents believe extraterrestrials created all life on earth, uses a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced star of David and a swastika. The Raëlians say the Star of David represents infinity in space, whereas the swastika represents infinity in time{{snd}}no beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.proswastika.org |title=Pro-Swastika |publisher=Pro-Swastika |access-date=2 March 2010}}</ref> In 1991, the symbol was changed 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://raelianews.org/news.php?item.206.3 |title=The Official Raelian Symbol gets its swastika back |publisher=Raelianews |date=17 January 2007 |access-date=2 March 2010}}</ref>

The swastika is a holy symbol in neopagan Germanic Heathenry, along with the hammer of Thor and runes. This tradition{{snd}}which is found in Scandinavia, Germany, and elsewhere{{snd}}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.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra|author2=Brian P. Levack|author3=Roy Porter|title=Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 6: The Twentieth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IurTAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA111 |date=1999|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-0-485-89105-8|pages=111–114}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Stefanie von Schnurbein|title=Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrdejgEACAAJ|date=2016|publisher= Brill Academic|isbn=978-90-04-29435-6}}</ref>{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=141, 193–194, 210–211, 226–227}}

<gallery> File:Theosophicalsealfrench.svg|The seal of the Theosophical Society File:Raelian_symbol.svg|The Raëlian symbol with the swastika File:Raelian_symbol_alternate.svg|The alternative Raëlian with the spiral </gallery>

===Nazism===

{{Further|Fascist symbolism|Nazi symbolism|Occultism in Nazism}} {{multiple image | perrow = 3 | total_width = 300 | caption_align = center | title = Nazi Party Emblems | image1 = NSDAP-Logo.svg | caption1 = Party badge | image2 = Parteiadler Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (1933–1945).svg | caption2 = Parteiadler ("Party eagle") | image3 = Golden Nazi Party Badge.svg | caption3 = Golden Party Badge }}

Before the Nazis, the swastika was already in use as a symbol of the German nationalist Völkisch movement. In post-World War I Germany, the newly established Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika in 1920.<ref name="holocaust2009" /><ref>{{cite news |last=A. |first=Aleksandra |date=18 March 2018 |title=Planted in 1933 this mysterious forest swastika remained unnoticed until 1992 – it was then quickly cut down |url=https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/18/mysterious-wwii/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240730015500/https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/18/mysterious-wwii/ |archive-date=30 July 2024 |access-date=10 September 2018 |newspaper=The Vintage News }}</ref> 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. Adolf Hitler also designed his personal standard using a black swastika sitting flat on one arm, not rotated.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Der Flaggenkurier |journal=Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Flaggenkunde |location=Achim und Berlin |number=16/2002 bis 30/2009 |issn=0949-6173|language=de}} [{{cite journal |title=The Flag Courier |journal=Journal of the German Society for Flags}}]</ref>

{{multiple image | align = right | direction = horizontal | image1 = Flag of the NSDAP (1920–1945).svg | width1 = 120 | caption1 = The flag of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP) | image2 = Flag_of_the_German_Reich_(1935–1945).svg | width2 = 120 | caption2 = 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 {{lang|de|Mein Kampf}}, 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 colours expressive of our homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honour 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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt |title=text of ''Mein Kampf'' at Project Gutenberg of Australia |publisher=Gutenberg.net.au |access-date=2 March 2010}}</ref>

The swastika was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, effecting life" ({{lang|de|das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens}}) and as "race emblem of Germanism" ({{lang|de|Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums}}).<ref>Walther Blachetta: {{lang|de|Das Buch der deutschen Sinnzeichen}} (The book of German sense characters); reprint of 1941; p. 47</ref>

The concepts of racial hygiene and scientific racism were central to Nazism.<ref>{{cite book |title=Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis |page=[https://archive.org/details/racialhygiene00robe/page/n265 220] |publisher=Harvard University Press |author=Robert Proctor |url=https://archive.org/details/racialhygiene00robe|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-674-74578-0 |date=1988 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iX0IOWHsoAUC |page=43 |author=Mark B. Adams |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1990 |isbn=978-0-19-536383-8 }}</ref> 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 colours. As part of the Nuremberg Laws, the NSDAP flag{{snd}}with the swastika slightly offset from centre{{snd}}was adopted as the sole national flag of Germany on 15 September 1935.<ref>James Q. Whitman, "Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law", (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 28.</ref>

<gallery> File:Treu Deutsch Nr. 11 12 10. September 1918 Nachrichten des Deutschen Volksrates Einheit völkischer Verbände Herausgegeben von Dr. Heinrich Pudor. Hakenkreuz early swastika Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig (City Museum) 2015 adjusted.jpg|Heinrich Pudor's ''völkisch'' ''Treu Deutsch'' ('True German') 1918 with a swastika. From the collections of the Leipzig City Museum. File:Pre-Nazi Swastika. Stahlhelm M 1916 mit Hakenkreuzbemalung. Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. Lüttwitz-Kapp-Putsch 1920. Deutsches Historisches Museum.jpg|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 File:Standarte Adolf Hitlers.svg|Personal standard of Adolf Hitler (a war flag or {{lang|de|Standarte}} in German) used from 1934 to 1945 File:Deutsches Reich Mother's Cross of Honour.jpg|Cross of Honour of the German Mother (1939–1945) given to German mothers of four or more children </gallery>

===Americas=== [[File:Chromesun 4 uktenas design.jpg|thumb|A digital illustration of Horned Serpent by the artist Herb Roe. Based on an engraved shell cup in the ''Craig B style'' (designated ''Engraved shell cup number 229''<ref>{{cite journal|title=Linking Spiro's artistic styles: The Copper Connection| author1=Brown, James A. |author2= Rogers, J. Daniel|journal =Southeastern Archaeology| date=23 November 2023 | volume=8 |issue= 1 |pages= | publisher=Allen Press | url= http://projectpast.org/caddo/topic4/brown1989.pdf}}</ref>) from Spiro, Oklahoma.]] The swastika has been used in the art and iconography of multiple indigenous peoples of North America, including the Hopi, Navajo, and Tlingit.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Michael |date=2009 |title=Art in Daily Life: Native American Collections at the State Historical Society of Iowa |page=102 |work=Iowa Heritage Illustrated |url=https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/ihi/article/id/1388/download/pdf/ |access-date=27 January 2023}}</ref> Swastikas were founds on pottery from the Mississippi valley and on copper objects in the Hopewell Mounds in Ross County, Ohio, and on objects associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Willoughby |first=C. C. |date=1897 |title=An Analysis of the Decorations upon Pottery from the Mississippi Valley |journal=The Journal of American Folklore |volume=10 |issue=36 |pages=9–20 |doi=10.2307/533845 |jstor=533845 |issn=0021-8715}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Freed |first1=Stanley A |url=https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/63402/article_rip661_part6.pdf |title=Swastika: A New Symbolic Interpretation |last2=Freed |first2=Ruth S |publisher=Rice University Studies |page=93 |language=en |archive-date=13 April 2023 |access-date=27 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413222758/https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/63402/article_rip661_part6.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> To the Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}} The Navajo symbol, called {{lang|nav|tsin náálwołí}} ("whirling log"), represents humanity and life, and is used in healing rituals.<ref name="Sanchez-2018">{{Cite web |last=Sanchez |first=Hayley |date=15 August 2018 |title=Those are sacred Navajo Symbols, Not Swastikas, On That Pueblo Art Collector's Rug |url=https://www.cpr.org/2018/08/15/those-are-sacred-navajo-symbols-not-swastikas-on-that-pueblo-art-collectors-rug/ |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=Colorado Public Radio |language=en}}</ref><ref>Dottie Indyke. "[http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa086.shtml The History of an Ancient Human Symbol] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041205011620/http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa086.shtml |date=5 December 2004 }}". 4{{spaces}}April 2005. originally from ''The Wingspread Collector's Guide to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque'', Volume 15.</ref> A brightly coloured First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.<ref>Photo and text, [http://www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/research/faqs/ex_8.shtml "Why is there a Swastika on the saddle in the First Nations Gallery?"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060118021210/http://www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/research/faqs/ex_8.shtml |date=18 January 2006 }}, Royal Saskatchewan Museum</ref>

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.

In the 20th century, traders encouraged Native American artists to use the symbol in their crafts; it was used by the US Army 45th Infantry Division, an all-Native American division.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Swastika |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-swastika |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Deepa |first=Bharath |date=2022-11-28 |title=Faith groups seek to save sacred swastikas |url=https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/nov/28/faith-groups-seek-to-save-sacred-swastikas/ |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=Arkansas Online |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Ayres-2021">{{Cite web |last=Ayres |first=Steven |date=June 2021 |title=Reclaiming Sacred Heritage |url=https://www.5ensesmag.com/article/reclaiming-sacred-heritage |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=5enses Magazine}}</ref> The symbol lost popularity in the 1930s due to its associations with Nazi Germany. In 1940, in part due to government encouragement, community leaders from several Native American tribes issued a statement promising not to use the symbol.<ref>{{Cite news |date=26 February 1940 |title=Indians Denounce Nazis, Forego Use of Swastika |page=1 |work=St. Joseph Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/36417593/indians-denounce-swastika/}}</ref><ref name="Sanchez-2018" /><ref name="Kane-2017" /><ref name="Ayres-2021" /> However, the symbol has continued to be used by Native American groups, both in reference to the original symbol and as a memorial to the 45th Division, despite external objections to its use.<ref name="Olson" /><ref name="Ayres-2021" /><ref name="Kane-2017">{{Cite web |last=Kane |first=Rich |date=29 August 2017 |title=A group of protesters demanded that a Native American swastika be removed from an SLC market — but were they right? |url=https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/29/uproar-at-salt-lake-city-market-raises-decades-old-question-will-the-ancient-native-american-swastika-always-be-a-symbol-of-nazi-hate/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324143526/https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/29/uproar-at-salt-lake-city-market-raises-decades-old-question-will-the-ancient-native-american-swastika-always-be-a-symbol-of-nazi-hate/ |archive-date=24 March 2022 |access-date=24 March 2022 |website=Salt Lake City Tribune}}</ref><ref>Brown, Jerome F. "Anti-semitism on campus: the swastika of NMSU." ''Shofar'' (1986): 22–32.</ref><ref>Heller, Steven. ''The swastika: symbol beyond redemption?'' Simon and Schuster, 2010.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last= |first= |date=16 March 2015 |title=Swastika or Whirling Logs? Should the Ancient Native Symbol Stolen by the Nazis Be Reclaimed? |url=https://ictnews.org/archive/swastika-or-whirling-logs-tattoo-artist-reignites-debate-over-ancient-native-symbol |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=ICT News |language=en}}</ref> The symbol was used on state road signs in Arizona from the 1920s until the 1940s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.route66news.com/2006/10/26/swastikas-on-old-arizona-road-maps/|title=Swastikas on old Arizona road maps?|last=Warnick|first=Ron|date=2006-10-26|website=Route 66 News|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-05}}</ref>

The town of Swastika, Ontario, 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 its trademark.

thumb|right|Flag of the Guna Yala people (since 1925) bears their ancient symbol {{lang|cuk|Naa Ukuryaa}}

The flag of the Guna people (also "Kuna Yala" or "Guna Yala") of Panama, adopted in 1925, has a swastika symbol that they call {{lang|cuk|Naa Ukuryaa}}. According to one explanation, this ancestral symbol symbolises the octopus that created the world, its tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points.<ref>[http://www.rainforestart.com/creationch.htm ''Chants and Myths about Creation''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051031033352/http://www.rainforestart.com/creationch.htm |date=31 October 2005 }}, from Rainforest Art. Retrieved 25 February 2006.</ref> In 1942, a ring was added to the centre of the flag to distinguish it from the Nazi Party's symbol (this version subsequently fell into disuse).<ref name="Panama - Native Peoples" />

<gallery class="center" widths="187" heights="187" caption="The swastika in North America"> File:William Neptune, Passamaquoddy chief, 1920.jpg|Chief William Neptune of the Passamaquoddy, wearing a headdress and outfit adorned with swastikas File:Native American basketball team crop.jpg|Chilocco Indian Agricultural School basketball team in 1909 File:Fernie Swastikas hockey team 1922.jpg|Fernie Swastikas hockey team in 1922 File:Patch of the 45th Infantry Division (1924-1939).svg|Original insignia of the 45th Infantry Division File:The Girls Club of Ladies Home Journal 1912 pillow cover (cropped).jpg|Pillow cover offered by the Girls' Club in ''The Ladies Home Journal'' in 1912 File: Arizona 2 1927.jpg|Arizona state highway marker (1927) </gallery>

===Africa===

Swastikas can be seen in various African cultures. In Ethiopia a swastika is carved in the window of the famous 12th-century Biete Maryam, one of the Rock-Hewn Churches, Lalibela.<ref name="Roden">{{cite journal|first=David Roden |last=Buxton |title=The Christian Antiquities of Northern Ethiopia |journal=Archaeologia |publisher=Society of Antiquaries of London |volume=92 |date=1947 |pages=11 & 23 |doi=10.1017/S0261340900009863 }}</ref> In Ghana, the adinkra symbol {{lang|ak|nkontim}}, used by the Akan people to represent loyalty, takes the form of a swastika. {{lang|ak|Nkontim}} symbols could be found on Ashanti gold weights and clothing.<ref>Claire Polakoff. ''Into Indigo: African Textiles and Dyeing Techniques''. 1980</ref> <gallery class="center"> File:Skastika symbol in the window of Lalibela Rock hewn churches.jpg|Carved fretwork forming a swastika on the Biete Maryam in Ethiopia File:Ghana-nkontim.svg|{{lang|ak|Nkontim}} adinkra symbol from Ghana, representing loyalty and readiness to serve File:Brooklyn Museum 74.218.25 Weight.jpg|Ashanti weight in Africa </gallery>

===Modern adoptions===

A {{lang|lv|ugunskrusts}} ('fire cross') is used by the Baltic neopagan religions Dievturība in Latvia and Romuva in Lithuania.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@subhashkak1/romuva-and-the-vedic-gods-of-lithuania-3aae469ff2f1|title=Romuva and the Vedic Gods of Lithuania|last=Kak|first=Subhash|date=2018-07-09|website=Subhash Kak|access-date=2018-11-08}}</ref>

In the early 1990s, the former dissident and one of the founders of Russian neo-paganism Alexey Dobrovolsky first gave the name {{tlit|ru|"kolovrat"|italic=no}} ({{langx|ru|link=no|коловрат}}, literally 'spinning wheel') to a four-beam swastika, identical to the Nazi symbol, and later transferred this name to an eight-beam rectangular swastika.<ref>''Dobroslav''. Природные корни русского национального социализма // Russkaya Pravda. 1996. Спецвыпуск No. 1 (3). С. 3.</ref> The eight-beam swastika dates back all the way to Ancient Greece, with some ceramics containing the eight-beamed symbol.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bell-shaped female figurine |url=http://collections.mfa.org/objects/151610/bellshaped-female-figurine;jsessionid=A1F35DCFE9C9814FC6DC4F95B9441F6D |access-date=2025-06-10 |website=collections.mfa.org |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=idole cloche |publisher=Louvre |url=https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010262652 |access-date=2025-06-10}}</ref> A necklace found in Ukraine via metal detection is estimated to date back to the 11th century and also contained the {{tlit|ru|kolovrat|italic=no}} symbol, providing some solid evidence of its presence among the Slavic people at the time. A six-beamed variant is located in the tower of the Vang Church in Karpacz, Poland.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vlasatý |first=Tomáš |date=2019-04-27 |title=Origins of "kolovrat" symbol - Projekt Forlǫg |url=https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/origins-of-kolovrat-symbol/ |access-date=2025-06-10 |language=en-GB}}</ref> According to the historian and religious scholar Roman Shizhensky, Dobrovolsky took the idea of the swastika from the work "The Chronicle of Oera Linda"<ref>{{cite book|last= Wirth|first= Herman|author-link= Herman Wirth|date= 2007|title= Хроника Ура-Линда. Древнейшая история Европы |trans-title=Chronicle of Ura-Linda. Ancient history of Europe |location= Moscow|publisher= Вече|page= 454|isbn=|language=ru}}</ref> by the Nazi ideologist Herman Wirth, the first head of the Ahnenerbe.<ref name="Shizhensky 2012">{{cite web |last=Shizhensky |first=Roman |date= 2012 |title=Роман Шиженский: Опыт сравнительного анализа текстов А.А. Добровольскогои Г.Ф. Вирта (к вопросу об источниковой базе российских неоязычников) |trans-title=The experience of comparative analysis of the texts of A. A. Dobrovolsky and G. F. Wirth (to the question of the source base of Russian neo-pagans) |url= http://www.mesoeurasia.org/archives/8604 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160221091003/http://www.mesoeurasia.org/archives/8604 |archive-date=2016-02-21 |language=ru}}</ref> Dobrovolsky introduced the eight-beam {{tlit|ru|"kolovrat"|italic=no}} as a symbol of "resurgent paganism."<ref>{{cite book |last= Kavykin |first= Oleg |date= 2007 |title= "Rodnovery". Self-identification of neo-pagans in modern Russia |url= http://www.inafran.ru/sites/default/files/page_file/rodnoveri.pdf |location= Moscow |publisher= Institute for African Studies RAS |page= 232 |isbn=978-5-91298-017-6 |language=ru}}</ref> He considered this version of the {{tlit|ru|Kolovrat|italic=no}} a pagan sign of the sun and, in 1996, declared it a symbol of the uncompromising "national liberation struggle" against the "Zhyd yoke".<ref>{{cite book |last=Dobrovolsky |first=Alexey Alexandrovich |title= Природные корни русского национального социализма |trans-title=The Natural Roots of Russian National Socialism |publisher=Russkaya Pravda |year=1996 |language=ru}}</ref> According to Dobrovolsky, the meaning of the {{tlit|ru|"kolovrat"|italic=no}} completely coincides with the meaning of the Nazi swastika.<ref>{{cite book |last= Schnirelmann |first= Victor |author-link= Victor Schnirelmann |date= 2015 |title= Aryan myth in the modern world |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Aa8qCwAAQBAJ |location= |publisher= New literary review |page= |isbn=978-5-4448-0422-3 |language=ru}}</ref> The {{tlit|ru|kolovrat}} is the most commonly used religious symbol within neopagan Slavic Native Faith (a.k.a. Rodnovery).<ref>{{cite journal |surname=Schnirelmann |given=Victor A. |date=2000 |title=Perun, Svarog and Others: Russian Neo-Paganism in Search of Itself |journal=The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology |volume=21 |number=3 |page=25 |jstor=23818709}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |surname1=Pilkington |given1=Hilary |surname2=Popov |given2=Anton |date=2009 |contribution=Understanding Neo-paganism in Russia: Religion? Ideology? Philosophy? Fantasy? |title=Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe |editor=George McKay |page=282 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-3-03911-921-9}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite web|last=Saidazimova |first=Gulnoza |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/1064129.html |title=Tajikistan: Officials Say Swastika Part Of Their Aryan Heritage – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2008 |publisher=Rferl.org |date=23 December 2005 |access-date=2 March 2010}}</ref>

<gallery> File:Fire Cross (Ugunskrusts).svg|The Baltic fire-cross File:Kolovrat (Коловрат) Swastika (Свастика) - Rodnovery.svg|{{langx|pl|Słoneczko}} ("little sun"); {{tlit|ru|kolovrat}} ("spinning wheel”) File:Kolovrat.svg|A {{tlit|ru|kolovrat|italic=no}} flag, introduced by Alexey Dobrovolsky. The flag's use of Red and Yellow intends to combine Dobrovolsky's ideology of neo-Nazism with Russian Imperialist-inspired Soviet nostalgia. File:Romuva symbol.svg|A solar symbol compossed of grass snakes used by the Lithuanian Romuva </gallery>

==Modern controversy== [[File:Flight Lieutenant Dennis Barnham of No. 601 Squadron RAF in the cockpit of his Supermarine Spitfire Mk VB at Luqa, Malta, with Pilot Officer M H Le Bas, June 1942. GM1001.jpg|thumb|Swastikas marking downed {{Lang|de|Luftwaffe}} aircraft on the fuselage of a Supermarine Spitfire of No. 601 Squadron RAF. A {{Lang|la|fasces}} indicates a {{Lang|it|Regia Aeronautica}} aircraft.]]

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,<ref>{{cite book|author=Verhulsdonck, Gustav|title=Digital Rhetoric and Global Literacies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ed9GAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA94|date=2013|publisher=IGI|isbn=978-1-4666-4917-0|page=94}}</ref> and of white supremacy in many Western countries.<ref>{{cite book|author=Dawn Perlmutter|title=Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QPnKBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA242|date=2003|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-1-4200-4104-0|page=242}}</ref>

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 local governments can prohibit the use of the swastika, along with other symbols such as cross-burning, if the use is intended to intimidate others.<ref name=wiener463 />

=== Germany === {{Further|Strafgesetzbuch section 86a{{!}}''Strafgesetzbuch'' section 86a}}

The German and Austrian post-war criminal code makes the public showing of the swastika, the sig rune, the Celtic cross (specifically the variations used by white power activists), the {{lang|de|wolfsangel}}, the Odal SS-rune and the {{lang|de|Totenkopf}} skull illegal, except for certain enumerated exemptions. It is also censored from the reprints of 1930s railway timetables published by the {{lang|de|Reichsbahn}}. The swastikas on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples are exempt, as religious symbols cannot be banned in Germany.<ref>{{cite web |url = https://www.dw.com/en/germany-wont-seek-eu-wide-ban-on-swastikas/a-2330716 |title = Germany Won't Seek EU-Wide Ban on Swastikas |date= 29 January 2007 |work = Deutsche Welle}}</ref>

A controversy was stirred by the decision of several police departments to begin inquiries against anti-fascists.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.spcm.org/Journal/article.php3?id_article=1869 |work=Le Journal Chrétien |title=Stuttgart Seeks to Ban Anti-Fascist Symbols |publisher=Spcm.org |access-date=2 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080420011238/http://www.spcm.org/Journal/article.php3?id_article=1869 |archive-date=20 April 2008 }}</ref> 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 trash can. The placard was displayed in opposition to the campaign of right-wing nationalist parties for local elections.<ref>{{in lang|de}} [http://www.tageblatt.de/main.cfm?DID=747071 Tageblatt] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090113164205/http://www.tageblatt.de/main.cfm?DID=747071 |date=13 January 2009 }} 23 September 2006</ref>

On Friday, 17 March 2006, a member of the {{lang|de|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 ({{lang|de|Bundesgerichtshof}}) held that the crossed-out symbols were "clearly directed against a revival of national-socialist endeavours", thereby settling the dispute for the future.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&Datum=2007&Sort=3&Seite=5&anz=200&pos=164&nr=39349&linked=urt&Blank=1&file=dokument.pdf |title=3 StR 486/06 |publisher=Federal Court of Justice of Germany |access-date=2 March 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&Datum=2007&Sort=3&Seite=5&nr=39202&pos=164&anz=200 |title=Bundesgerichtshof press statement No. 36/2007 |publisher=Federal Court of Justice of Germany |date=15 March 2007 |access-date=2 March 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,471880,00.html |title=Anti-Nazi-Symbole sind nicht strafbar |trans-title=Anti-Nazi symbols are not forbidden |work=Der Spiegel |language=de |date=15 March 2007 |access-date=2 March 2010 }}</ref>

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."<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/09/germany-lifts-ban-nazi-symbols-video-games/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/09/germany-lifts-ban-nazi-symbols-video-games/ |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Germany Lifts Ban on Nazi Symbols in Video Games |author= |date=9 August 2018 |work=The Telegraph}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pcgamer.com/germany-lifts-ban-on-swastikas-in-videogames/ |first=Andy |last=Chalk |title=Germany Lifts Ban on Swastikas in Videogames |date=9 August 2018 |work=PC Gamer}}</ref>

=== 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.<ref name=hu-const-court /><ref>{{cite web|title=Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code, Section 335: Use of Symbols of Totalitarianism|url=http://thb.kormany.hu/download/a/46/11000/Btk_EN.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222194128/http://thb.kormany.hu/download/a/46/11000/Btk_EN.pdf |archive-date=2017-02-22 |url-status=live|page=97|website=Ministry of Interior of Hungary|access-date=21 February 2017|quote=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{{snd}}specifically in a way to offend the dignity of victims of totalitarian regimes and their right to sanctity{{snd}}is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by custodial arrest, insofar as it did not result in a more serious criminal offense.}}</ref> Display for academic, educational, artistic, or journalistic reasons was allowed at the time. The communist symbols of the hammer and sickle and the red star were also regarded as totalitarian symbols and were subject to the same restrictions under Hungarian criminal law until 2013.<ref name=hu-const-court /> * In Latvia, public display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, including the Nazi swastika, has been prohibited in public events since 2013.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/latvia-bans-nazi-symbols-in-public-1.5283630|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108224503/https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/latvia-bans-nazi-symbols-in-public-1.5283630|url-status=dead|archive-date=8 November 2018|title=Latvia Bans Nazi, Soviet Symbols at Public Events|date=2013-06-20|work=Haaretz|access-date=2018-11-08|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.upi.com/Latvian-bill-would-ban-Soviet-Nazi-symbols/58631371833846/|title=Latvian bill would ban Soviet, Nazi symbols|date=2013-06-21|work=UPI|access-date=2018-11-08|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://lvportals.lv/skaidrojumi/255373-ka-aizliegt-to-kas-jau-ir-aizliegts-2013|title=Kā aizliegt to, kas jau ir aizliegts? |last=lvportals.lv|date=2013-05-07|access-date=2018-11-08|language=lv}}</ref> * 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jurist.org/paperchase/2010/05/lithuania-court-rules-swastikas-are-part-of-historic-legacy.php |title=Lithuania court rules swastikas are part of historic legacy |last=Stemple |first=Hillary |date=20 May 2010 |website=JURIST}}</ref> * 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.<ref name=tele-che /> * In Geneva, Switzerland, a new constitution article banning the use of hate symbols, emblems, and other hateful images was passed in June 2024, which included banning the use of the swastika.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2024-06-09 |title=Hate symbols banned by voters in Geneva |url=https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/democracy/hate-symbols-banned-by-voters-in-geneva/80152669 |access-date=2024-06-10 |website=SWI swissinfo.ch |language=en-GB}}</ref>

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.<ref name=EthanMcNern /> 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.<ref>Staff. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6269627.stm Hindus opposing EU swastika ban] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119204834/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6269627.stm |date=19 January 2007 }}, BBC online, 17 January 2007.</ref><ref>Staff (source dgs/Reuters)[http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,460259,00.html Hindus Against Proposed EU Swastika Ban] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129141033/http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,460259,00.html |date=29 January 2012 }} Der Spiegel online, 17 January 2007</ref> The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on 29 January 2007.<ref name=EthanMcNern />

=== Outside Europe === The manufacture, distribution, or broadcasting of a 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-year prison term and a fine.<ref>[https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L7716.htm Brazilian Federal Statute 7.716] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090515033324/http://www.planalto.gov.br/CCIVIL_03/LEIS/L7716.htm |date=15 May 2009 }} 1989-05-01, (Portuguese)</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Shuster|first1=Simon|title=How the Nazi Flags in Charlottesville Look to a German|url=https://time.com/4900385/charlottesville-nazi-kkk-swastika-germany-reaction/|access-date=15 August 2017|magazine=Time|date=14 August 2017|archive-date=14 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814223257/http://time.com/4900385/charlottesville-nazi-kkk-swastika-germany-reaction/|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article29557972.html |title=How Germany dealt with its symbols of hate |last=Schofield |first=Matthew |date=30 July 2015 |website=mcclatchydc.com |publisher=McClatchy DC Bureau |access-date=18 August 2017 |quote=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.}}</ref>

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."<ref name="Dickter">{{cite web | last1=Dickter | first1=Adam | last2=Lipman | first2=Steve | last3=Savage | first3=Nigel| title=ADL Downgrades Swastika As Jewish Hate Symbol | website=Jewish Week | date=Jun 1, 2010 | url=http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/adl-downgrades-swastika-as-jewish-hate-symbol/ | access-date=Apr 23, 2020}}</ref> 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 among American white supremacists (particularly as a tattoo design) and used with antisemitic intention.<ref name="ADL">{{Cite web|title=Swastika|url=https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/swastika|access-date=2020-07-31|website=Anti-Defamation League|language=en}}</ref>

In 2022, Victoria was the first Australian state to ban the display of the Nazi swastika. People who intentionally break this law will face a one-year jail sentence, a fine of 120 penalty units ($23,077.20 AUD as of 2023, equivalent to £12,076.66 or US$15,385.57), or both.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61890577 | title=Swastika: Victoria bans display of Nazi symbol in Australian first | date=22 June 2022 | publisher=BBC News |access-date= 22 June 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The ban on Nazi symbols and gestures in Victoria |url=https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/ban-nazi-symbols-gestures-victoria |website=Victoria Legal Aid |date=November 2023 |access-date=3 December 2023}}</ref>

=== Media === In 2010, Microsoft officially spoke out against players of the first-person shooter ''Call of Duty: Black Ops'' using the swastika. In ''Black Ops'', players can customise their name tags to represent 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.<ref name="Goldman 2010">{{cite web |last=Goldman |first=Tom |title=Black Ops Swastika Emblems Will Earn Xbox Live Ban |website=escapistmagazine.com |date=2010-11-23 |url=https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105501-Black-Ops-Swastika-Emblems-Will-Earn-Xbox-Live-Ban |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123135409/https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105501-Black-Ops-Swastika-Emblems-Will-Earn-Xbox-Live-Ban |archive-date=2010-11-23 }}</ref>

In the ''Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular'' at Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida, the swastikas on German trucks, aircraft, and actor uniforms in the re-enactment of a scene from ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' were removed in 2004.<ref name="Telotte 2008 p.201">{{cite book|title=The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology|page=201|last=Telotte |first=Jay P. |author-link=Jay Telotte |url=https://archive.org/details/mousemachinedisn0000telo/page/201/mode/2up|url-access=registration|isbn=978-0-252-09263-3|date=2008|publisher=University of Illinois Press |oclc=811409076}}</ref>

===Use by neo-Nazis <span class="anchor" id="Neo-Nazism"></span> === 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.<ref>Frederick J. Simonelli (1995), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24451464 "The American Nazi Party, 1958–1967"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200427075108/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24451464 |date=27 April 2020 }}, ''The Historian'', Vol. 57, No.{{spaces}}3 (Spring 1995), pp. 553–566</ref> It was "re-used" by successor organisations in 1983, without the publicity Rockwell's organisation enjoyed.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

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, Counsellors 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".<ref>Carnes, Jim (1999), [http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED437466.pdf Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224190200/http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED437466.pdf |date=24 February 2017 }}, ERIC, Department of Education, US Government, pp. 9–11, 33, 49–50</ref>

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.<ref name="Lihachev" /> 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''.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Mudde |editor-first1=Cas |title=Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe |page=61 |location=London |publisher=Routledge |date=2005 |series=Routledge studies in extremism and democracy |isbn=978-0-415-35593-3 }}</ref> The Kolovrat has since been used by the Rusich Battalion, a Russian militant group known for its operation during the war in Donbas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theinsider.ua/politics/55cdd8ccea6a8/|title=Сомнительная символика в лагере Азовец: зачем выглядеть, как сторонники ДНР? |trans-title=Doubtful symbols in the Azovets camp: why look like DNR supporters? |language=Ukrainian |website=www.theinsider.ua}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Likhachev |first1=Vyacheslav |title=The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine |url=https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rnv95_uk_likhachev_far-right_radicals_final.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161026151159/https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rnv95_uk_likhachev_far-right_radicals_final.pdf |archive-date=2016-10-26 |url-status=live |publisher=Russie.NEI.Visions in English |pages=18–26 |date=July 2016}}</ref> In 2014 and 2015, members of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment were seen with swastika tattoos.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ukrainian Soldiers Seen Wearing Helmets With Nazi Swastika and SS Symbols |url=https://www.haaretz.com/2014-09-09/ty-article/ukrainian-soldiers-seen-wearing-nazi-symbols/0000017f-e17a-d568-ad7f-f37b64d50000 |agency=Haaretz}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Azov fighters are Ukraine's greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis |agency=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The Azov Battalion: The neo-Nazis of Ukraine |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/the-azov-battalion-the-neo-nazis-of-ukraine/article65239935.ece |agency=The Hindu}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Inside Azov, the far-Right brigade killing Russian generals and playing a PR game in the Ukraine war |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/18/inside-azov-neo-nazi-brigade-killing-russian-generals-playing/ |agency=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref>

<gallery> File:Blason du National Socialist Movement usa.svg|Logo of the National Socialist Movement (U.S.) File:Russian National Unity Emblem.svg|Logo of the Russian National Unity </gallery>

===Western misinterpretation of Asian use=== Since the end of the 20th century and through the early 21st century, confusion and controversy have arisen when personal-use goods bearing 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 Nazi symbols. This has resulted in several such products being 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, which 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."<ref name="Heller 2008" />

In 2002, Christmas crackers containing plastic toy red pandas sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after customer complaints in Canada. The manufacturer, based in China, said the symbol was presented in a traditional sense, not as a reference to the Nazis, and apologised to customers for the cross-cultural mix-up.<ref>{{cite web |work=CBC News |date=30 December 2002 |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toy-pandas-bearing-swastikas-a-cultural-mix-up-1.343550 |title=Toy pandas bearing swastikas a cultural mix-up}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lewis |first1=Sophie |title=Popular online retailer Shein apologizes for selling swastika necklace after backlash |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shein-nazi-symbol-swastika-necklace/ |access-date=27 June 2021 |work=CBS News |publisher=CBS |date=10 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809110705/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shein-nazi-symbol-swastika-necklace/ |archive-date=9 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

====Swastika as distinct from ''Hakenkreuz'' debate <span class="anchor" id="Hakenkreuz"></span>==== {{Redirect|Hakenkreuz|the defunct German newspaper|Hakenkreuzbanner{{!}}''Hakenkreuzbanner''}} Beginning in the early 2000s, partially as a reaction to the publication of a book titled ''The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?'' by Steven Heller,<ref name="Heller 2008">{{cite book |last1=Heller |first1=Steven |title=The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? |date=2008 |publisher=Allworth Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-58115-507-5 }}</ref> there has been a movement by Hindus, Buddhists, and Native Americans to "reclaim" the swastika as a sacred symbol.<ref name="BBC News 2014"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Alemdar |first1=Melis |title=Asian communities seek to reclaim the swastika symbol in the US |url=https://www.trtworld.com/americas/asian-communities-seek-to-reclaim-the-swastika-symbol-in-the-us-63100 |access-date=3 December 2024 |work=TRT World |language=en}}</ref> These groups argue that the swastika is distinct from the Nazi symbol. However, Hitler said that the Nazi symbol was the same as the Oriental symbol. On 13 August 1920, speaking to his followers in the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl of Munich, Hitler said of the Nazi symbol: "You will find this cross as a swastika as far as India and Japan, carved in the temple pillars. It is the swastika, which was once a sign of established communities of Aryan Culture."<ref>Hitler, Adolf. (13 August 1920) "Why We Are Antisemites". Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, Munich. As transcribed by Reginald H. Phelps in "Dokumentation" in [http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1968_4.pdf ''Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte''] (PDF), published in October 1968. In German: "''Sie finden dieses Kreuz als Hackenkreuz nicht nur hier, sondern genau so in Indien und Japan in den Tempelpfosten eingemeißelt. Es ist das Hackenkreuz der einst von arischer Kultur gegründeten Gemeinwesen.''" English translation: "You will find this cross as a swastika as far as India and Japan, carved in the temple pillars. It is the swastika, which was once a sign of established communities of Aryan Culture."</ref>

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 1920s. As well, white supremacist groups still cling to the symbol as an icon of power and identity.<ref name="ADL"/>

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".<ref name="USA Today, Marc Ramirez, August 28, 2022">{{cite news |last=Ramirez |first=Marc |title=Is the swastika a symbol of hate or peaceful icon? Faith groups try to save reviled emblem |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/08/28/swastika-hate-symbol-link-dharmic-faiths/10342050002/ |website=USA Today |access-date=16 September 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Teitel |first=Emma |title=Truck protest teaches timely lessons about the current face of antisemitism |url=https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2022/02/11/truck-protest-teaches-timely-lessons-about-the-current-face-of-antisemitism.html |website=Toronto Star |date=11 February 2022 |access-date=15 February 2022}}</ref> 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 {{lang|de|Hakenkreuz}} or 'hooked cross'.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Heller |first1=Steven |title=The Daily Heller: Anti-hate Symbol Law Will Foster More Hate |url=https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/the-daily-heller-anti-hate-symbol-law-will-foster-more-hate/ |website=Print Magazine |date=9 March 2021 |access-date=17 February 2022}}</ref>

==See also== {{Portal|Hinduism|India|Religion|Germany|Asia}} * {{Annotated link |Arevakhach}} * {{Annotated link |Borjgali}} * {{Annotated link |Brigid's cross}} * {{Annotated link |Camunian rose}} * {{Annotated link |Fasces}} * {{Annotated link |Fascist symbolism}} * {{Annotated link |Flash and circle}} * {{Annotated link |Lauburu}} * {{Annotated link |Nazi symbolism}} * {{Annotated link |Sun cross}} * {{Annotated link |Svastikasana}} * {{Annotated link |Triskelion}} * {{Annotated link |Tursaansydän}} * {{Annotated link |Ugunskrusts}} * {{Annotated link |Valknut}} * {{Annotated link |Yoke and arrows}} * Z (military symbol) – sometimes called a Zwastika

==Notes== {{Notelist-ua}}

==References== <references> <ref name="p.97">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-3804Ud9-4IC |title=The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols |first=Robert |last=Beer |date=2003 |publisher=Serindia Publications, Inc. |via=Google Books|isbn=978-1-932476-03-3}}{{page needed|date=November 2019}}</ref> <ref name="etymology">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swastika?s=t |title='Swastika' Etymology |dictionary=Dictionary.com |access-date=8 June 2015}}</ref> <ref name="silverblatt109">{{cite book |author1=Art Silverblatt |author2=Nikolai Zlobin |title=International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_mfxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA109 |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-46760-1 |page=109|quote=Buddha's footprints were said to be swastikas.}}</ref>

<ref name="MigSym">{{Cite web|url=http://sacred-texts.com/sym/mosy/index.htm|title=The Migration of Symbols Index|website=sacred-texts.com}}</ref> <ref name="boissoneaultsm">Lorraine Boissoneault (6 April 2017), [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/man-who-brought-swastika-germany-and-how-nazis-stole-it-180962812/ The Man Who Brought the Swastika to Germany, and How the Nazis Stole It] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170601082056/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/man-who-brought-swastika-germany-and-how-nazis-stole-it-180962812/ |date=1 June 2017}}, Smithsonian Magazine</ref> <ref name="Schliemann347">{{cite book |author=Heinrich Schliemann |title=Ilios |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PkoXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA347 |orig-date=1880 |date=2008 |publisher=J. Murray |pages=347–348|isbn=978-90-301-0680-7 }}</ref> <ref name="M-W">Monier Monier-Williams (1899). ''A Sanskrit-English Dictionary'', s.v. ''[http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/1300/mw__1316.html svastika] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304021143/http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/1300/mw__1316.html |date=4 March 2018}}'' (p. 1283).</ref> <ref name="kobres">{{cite web |url=http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/bronze.html |title=Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse |first=Bob |last=Kobres |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090908045814/http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/bronze.html |archive-date=8 September 2009}}</ref> <ref name="Kathleen M. Nadeau 2010 87">{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife |date=2010 |publisher=ABL-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-35066-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofas00leej |url-access=registration |author=Kathleen M. Nadeau |editor=Lee, Jonathan H. X. |access-date=21 March 2011 |page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofas00leej/page/n19 87]}}</ref> <ref name="Sullivan2001p216">{{cite book |author=Bruce M. Sullivan |title=The A to Z of Hinduism |url=https://archive.org/details/atozofhinduism2001sull |url-access=registration |date=2001 |publisher= Scarecrow Press |isbn= 978-1-4616-7189-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/atozofhinduism2001sull/page/216 216]}}</ref> <ref name="snodgrass82">{{cite book |author=Adrian Snodgrass |title=The Symbolism of the Stupa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzqK8dDCM0UC&pg=PA82 |date=1992 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0781-5 |pages=82–83}}</ref> <ref name="Lander2013p27">{{cite book |author=Janis Lander |title=Spiritual Art and Art Education |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IH5iAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-66789-5 |pages=27–28}}</ref> <ref name="OLDTIDENS">Margrethe, Queen, Poul Kjrum, Rikke Agnete Olsen (1990). ''Oldtidens Ansigt: Faces of the Past'', p. 148. {{ISBN |978-87-7468-274-5}}</ref> <ref name="DAVIDSON83">H.R. Ellis Davidson (1965). ''Gods and Myths of Northern Europe'', p. 83. {{ISBN |978-0-14-013627-2}}</ref> <ref name="Old Slavic Symbols">{{cite web |title=Prasłowiańskie motywy architektoniczne |url=http://slowianie.republika.pl/drzeworyty.htm |access-date=19 May 2014 |date=1923 |archive-date=11 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011213412/http://www.slowianie.republika.pl/drzeworyty.htm }}</ref> <ref name="Lihachev">[http://www.sova-center.ru/files/xeno/nazi2002.pdf Вячеслав Лихачев. Нацизм в России. с.5] {{Webarchive|url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20081026100325/http://error.caravan.ru/404.html |date=26 October 2008}}{{snd}}about symbolic of neo-nazi party "RNU"</ref> <ref name="echoMsk">{{cite web |url=http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/victory/559590-echo/ |title=Свастика: благословение или проклятие |last=Багдасаров |first=Роман |work=Цена Победы |publisher=Echo of Moscow |access-date=7 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120710110211/http://echo.msk.ru/programs/victory/559590-echo/ |archive-date=10 July 2012 }} 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']."</ref> <ref name="Bogdasarov2002">{{cite book |author = Багдасаров Р. В. |chapter=Русские имена свастики |chapter-url=http://bagdasarovr.narod.ru/swastika.htm#imena |script-title=ru:Свастика: священный символ. Этнорелигиоведческие очерки |edition= 2nd |url= http://bagdasarovr.narod.ru/swastika.htm |location=Moscow |publisher= Белые Альвы |date=2002 |orig-date=2001 |language=ru |isbn= 978-5-7619-0164-3}}</ref> <ref name="Concise Armenian Encyclopedia p. 663">Concise Armenian Encyclopedia, Yerevan, v. II, p. 663</ref> <ref name="ruskolan.xpomo.com">{{cite web |url=http://ruskolan.xpomo.com/liter/kolovrat.htm |title=Kolovrat – Historical Roots – Collection of articles |publisher=Ruskolan.xpomo.com |author=Vladimir Plakhotnyuk |language=ru |access-date=2 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419080636/http://www.ruskolan.xpomo.com/liter/kolovrat.htm |archive-date=19 April 2009}}</ref>

<ref name="Panama - Native Peoples">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060630200335/http://www.fotw.us/flags/pa-nat.html ''Panama{{snd}}Native Peoples'']}}, from Flags of the World. Retrieved 20 February 2006.</ref> <ref name="holocaust2009">{{cite web |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=History of the Swastika |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=2009 |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/history-of-the-swastika}}</ref> <ref name="wiener463">{{cite journal |last1=Wiener |first1=Richard L. |last2=Richter |first2=Erin |title=Symbolic hate: Intention to intimidate, political ideology, and group association. |journal=Law and Human Behavior |publisher=American Psychological Association |volume=32 |issue=6 |date=2008 |doi=10.1007/s10979-007-9119-3 |pmid=18030607 |pages=463–476|s2cid=25546323}}</ref> <ref name="hu-const-court">{{cite news |title=Hungary, hammer and sickle ban declared illegal |url=http://www.ansa.it/nuova_europa/en/news/sections/news/2013/02/24/visualizza_new.html_1844118137.html |publisher=ANSA |date=27 February 2013 |access-date=12 November 2013}}</ref> <ref name="tele-che">Day, Matthew (23 April 2009) [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/5207669/Poland-to-ban-Che-Guevara-image.html "Poland 'to ban' Che Guevara image"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180414083007/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/5207669/Poland-to-ban-Che-Guevara-image.html |date=14 April 2018}} ''The Daily Telegraph''</ref> <ref name="EthanMcNern">Ethan McNern. [http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Swastika-ban-left-out-of.3342365.jp Swastika ban left out of EU's racism law] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805064029/http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Swastika-ban-left-out-of.3342365.jp |date=5 August 2011}}, ''The Scotsman'', 30 January 2007</ref> <ref name="lee86">{{cite book |author1=Jonathan H. X. Lee |author2=Kathleen M. Nadeau |title=Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9BrfLWdeISoC |date=2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-35066-5 |pages=86–87}}</ref> </references>

===Sources=== {{reflist|group=1}} {{refbegin}} * {{cite book |title=The Science of the Swastika |first=Bernard |last=Mees |isbn=978-963-9776-18-0 |location =Budapest |publisher=Central European University Press |date=2008}} {{refend}}

==Further reading== * {{Cite book |last1=McKay |first1=George |title=Subcultures and New Religious Movements in Russia and East-Central Europe |page=282}} * {{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=Malcolm |title=The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ExqIAgAAQBAJ |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-85495-0}}

== External links == {{Commons and category|Swastika|Swastikas}} {{Wiktionary|卐|swastika}} {{Wikiquote}} * [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/history-of-the-swastika History of the Swastika]—United States Holocaust Memorial Museum * [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4183467.stm The Origins of the Swastika]—BBC News * [https://latvians.com/?en/CFBH/Zimes/zimes-10-rhetoric.ssi Latvian signs, swastikas, and mittens]

Category:Swastika Category:Buddhist symbols Category:Cross symbols Category:Crosses in heraldry Category:Hindu symbols Category:Jain symbols Category:Magic symbols Category:Nazi symbolism Category:Religious symbols Category:Rotational symmetry Category:Symbols of Indian religions Category:Symbols of Nazi Germany Category:Talismans Category:Visual motifs