SWASTIKA

A Reader wrote: 

You must have read by now the attempt to ban the Swastika in Europe.
This will be a great blow for Hindus everywhere if such a ban does take
effect. The reason for the ban is due to its links with the Nazi party.

We must prepare our Hindu brothers and sisters who probably have no clue to its meaning apart from knowing that we use it everyday.
Can you please do an article on the Swastika and post it as soon as you can...

My Views:

With the amount of talk going on about banning the Swastika, I have a few things to say.

Just because it has been misused by some, do we ban weapons, fire, cars, drugs???

I remember when I was learning to drive a car, I was told by my instructor. “Remember, a car is like a weapon, it can give you years of service or it can kill, you and/or others”.

The fire can cook your food, keep you warm and burn you or others.

A weapon can be used to protect you or to kill, when it is unethical to do so.

It is believed that the Swastika originated from India about 6000 years ago. It has been used as a religious sign. It is considered a symbol of Ganesha.

It can be clockwise or anti-clockwise. Sometimes it features a dot between each arm. The anti-clock-wise Swastika represents Goddess Kali. (The Destructive Mother Goddess. Please note, that Mother Kali destroys evil and negativity). One often sees the clock-wise Swastika in account books, entrances and at the commencement of a ‘puja’ (prayer). The British author Rudyard Kipling, had a Swastika on the jackets of all his books.

Swastika is found in the soles of feet of the Buddha, symbolizing his footsteps. ) On Buddha’s chest and palms the Swastika is probably trying to convey  the kindness and good actions of the Buddha.

Swastika is a  mining town in northern Ontario, Canada. Some Christians consider the Swastika, a cross.

The Vikings, Jains, Buddhists, Greeks, Indians of North and South America, considered it an auspicious sign.

It was found in rock and cave paintings, on Byzantine Buildings, Celtic Monuments, the ruins of the ancient city of Troy and Greek coins.

A design of interlocking swastikas is part of the drawing of the flooring of the cathedral of Amiens in France.

It is a symbol of Nazi Germany and of the Aryans, who the Germans believed were their ancestors and a Master race. 

The Nazi party formally called the Swastika, the  Hakenkreuz, or the hooked cross. The Nazi Swastika is tilted at a 45 degree angle.

Due to the fact that the Swastika became the symbol of the Nazi Germany, it  became one of the most hated symbols. 

However, the American pilots painted a Swastika on aero-planes during world War 1.

‘Su’ means ‘good’

‘asti’ means ‘To be’

Swastika could be translated as ‘well being’ and ‘Good Luck’ ‘Grants Prosperity’…

I have heard that the Right handed Swastika encompasses the whole Universe, it could be like a protector wheel moving clock-wise, and the way it points in all four directions suggests stability…

And the world wants to ban it?  

Ms Vimla Patil wrote to me:

Dear Shakun, 

The Swastika also represents the springtime energy of the sun.
It is a symbol of the sun as the rejuvenator of life and therefore
symbolizes permanence of everything sacred. It is drawn in kumkum on the
wedding cloth held between the bridegroom and bride (Narayan and Lakshmi)
because energy unites every couple that recreates the human species. The
Swastika is a sign of well being and blessings from the source of energy
(the wheel suggests lifes' movement) that is divine. Love Vimla Patil.

A note from Ms Amla Ruia

About Swastika---

1. Any form , figure or object emanates energy and builds an aura of energy around itself. The importance of Swastika is that it generates a very high field of energy, in fact the highest that symbiosis can generate.

Hence its importance  is universal in character and  it cannot be banned.

We must crusade for its survival.

2. The oblique lines at the end of each line seem to suggest the expansion into infinity . Thus it is pointing to the infinity within us. It is suggesting that we are limitless as the Almighty.

3. Another interpretation is that the four semi-open squares are symbolizing , dharma, arth, kaam and Moksh. The dot in the center of each compartment is suggesting that all these areas of our lives should become beautiful.

The whole of it is representing  human life and suggesting that in each area infinite progress can be achieved within one life span.

Love Amla.

Read: Swastika and Sindhis