Part 2 (1/2)

The Swastika Thomas Wilson 75120K 2022-07-22

298) is well known; but the fact that the same sign has the same power elsewhere, as, for instance, in the Hieratic numerals, does not prove by any means that the one figure was derived from the other. We forget too easily that what was possible in one place was possible also in other places; and the more we extend our researches, the more we shall learn that the chapter of accidents is larger than we imagine.

The ”Suavastika” which Max Muller names and believes was applied to the Swastika sign, with the ends bent to the left (fig. 10), seems not to be reported with that meaning by any other author except Burnouf.[17]

Therefore the normal Swastika would seem to be that with the ends bent to the right. Burnouf says the word Suavastika may be a derivative or development of the Svastikaya, and ought to signify ”he who, or, that which, bears or carries the Swastika or a species of Swastika.” Greg,[18]

under the t.i.tle Sovastikaya, gives it as his opinion that there is no difference between it and the Swastika. Colonel Low[19] mentions the word Sawattheko, which, according to Burnouf[20] is only a variation of the Pali word Sotthika or Suvatthika, the Pali translation of the Sanskrit Swastika. Burnouf translates it as Svastikaya.

M. Eugene Burnouf[21] speaks of a third sign of the footprint of cakya, called Nandavartaya, a good augury, the meaning being the ”circle of fortune,” which is the Swastika inclosed within a square with avenues radiating from the corners (fig. 14). Burnouf says the above sign has many significations. It is a sacred temple or edifice, a species of labyrinth, a garden of diamonds, a chain, a golden waist or shoulder belt, and a conique with spires turning to the right.

Colonel Sykes[22] concludes that, according to the Chinese authorities Fa-hian, Soung Young, Hiuan thsang, the ”Doctors of reason,” Tao-sse, or followers of the mystic cross [S] were diffused in China and India before the advent of Sakya in the sixth century B. C. (according to Chinese, j.a.panese, and Buddhist authorities, the eleventh century B. C.), continuing until Fa-hian's time; and that they were professors of a qualified Buddhism, which, it is stated, was the universal religion of Tibet before Sakya's advent,[23] and continued until the introduction of orthodox Buddhism in the ninth century A. D.[24]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 14. NANDaVARTAYA, A THIRD SIGN OF THE FOOTPRINT OF BUDDHA. Burnouf, ”Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” Paris, 1852, p. 696.]

Klaproth[25] calls attention to the frequent mention by Fa-hian, of the Tao-sse, sectaries of the mystic cross [S] (Sanskrit Swastika), and to their existence in Central Asia and India; while he says they were diffused over the countries to the west and southwest of China, and came annually from all kingdoms and countries to adore Ka.s.sapo, Buddha's predecessor.[26] Mr. James Burgess[27] mentions the Tirthankaras or Jainas as being sectarians of the Mystic Cross, the Swastika.

The Cyclopaedia of India (t.i.tle Swastika), coinciding with Prof. Max Muller, says:

The Swastika symbol is not to be confounded with the Swastika sect in Tibet which took the symbol for its name as typical of the belief of its members. They render the Sanskrit Swastika as composed of su ”well” and asti ”it is,” meaning, as Professor Wilson expresses it, ”so be it,” and implying complete resignation under all circ.u.mstances.

They claimed the Swastika of Sanskrit as the _suti_ of Pali, and that the Swastika cross was a combination of the two symbols _sutti-suti_.

They are rationalists, holding that contentment and peace of mind should be the only objects of life. The sect has preserved its existence in different localities and under different names, Thirthankara, Tor, Musteg, Pon, the last name meaning purity, under which a remnant are still in the farthest parts of the most eastern province of Tibet.

General Cunningham[28] adds his a.s.sertion of the Swastika being the symbol used by the Buddhist sect of that name. He says in a note:

The founder of this sect flourished about the year 604 to 523 B. C., and that the mystic cross is a symbol formed by the combination of the two Sanskrit syllables _su_ and _ti-suti_.

Waring[29] proceeds to demolish these statements of a sect named Swastika as pure inventions, and ”consulting Professor Wilson's invaluable work on the Hindoo religious sects in the 'Asiatic Researches,' we find no account of any sect named Swastika.”

Mr. V. R. Gandhi, a learned legal gentleman of Bombay, a representative of the Jain sect of Buddhists to the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago, 1893, denies that there is in either India or Tibet a sect of Buddhists named ”Swastika.” He suggests that these gentlemen probably mean the sects of Jains (of which Mr. Gandhi is a member), because this sect uses the Swastika as a sign of benediction and blessing. This will be treated further on. (See p. 804.)

Zmigrodzki, commenting on the frequency of the Swastika on the objects found by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, gives it as his opinion[30] that these representations of the Swastika have relation to a human cult indicating a supreme being filled with goodness toward man. The sun, stars, etc., indicate him as a G.o.d of light. This, in connection with the idol of Venus, with its triangular s.h.i.+eld engraved with a Swastika (fig.

125), and the growing trees and palms, with their increasing and multiplying branches and leaves, represent to him the idea of fecundity, multiplication, increase, and hence the G.o.d of life as well as of light.

The Swastika sign on funeral vases indicates to him a belief in a divine spirit in man which lives after death, and hence he concludes that the people of Hissarlik, in the ”Burnt City” (the third of Schliemann), adored a supreme being, the G.o.d of light and of life, and believed in the immortality of the soul.

R. P. Greg says:[31]

Originally it [the Swastika] would appear to have been an early Aryan atmospheric device or symbol indicative of both rain and lightning, phenomena appertaining to the G.o.d Indra, subsequently or collaterally developing, possibly, into the Suastika, or sacred fire churn in India, and at a still later period in Greece, adopted rather as a solar symbol, or converted about B. C. 650 into the meander or key pattern.

Waring, while he testifies to the extension of the Swastika both in time and area, says:[32]

But neither in the hideous jumble of Pantheism--the wild speculative thought, mystic fables, and perverted philosophy of life among the Buddhists--nor in the equally wild and false theosophy of the Brahmins, to whom this symbol, as distinctive of the Vishnavas, sectarian devotees of Vishnu, is ascribed by Moor in his ”Indian Pantheon,” nor yet in the tenets of the Jains,[33] do we find any decisive explanation of the meaning attached to this symbol, although its allegorical intention is indubitable.

He mentions the Swastika of the Buddhists, the cross, the circle, their combination, the three-foot [Y] and adds: ”They exhibit forms of those olden and widely spread pagan symbols of Deity and sanct.i.ty, eternal life and blessing.”

Professor Sayce says:[34]

The Cyprian vase figured in Di Cesnola's ”Cyprus,” pl. XLV, fig. 36 [see fig. 156], which a.s.sociates the Swastika with the figure of an animal, is a striking a.n.a.logue of the Trojan whorls on which it is a.s.sociated with the figures of stags. The fact that it is drawn within the v.u.l.v.a of the leaden image of the Asiatic G.o.ddess [see fig. 125]

seems to show that it was a symbol of generation. I believe that it is identical with the Cyprian character [symbol] or [symbol] (ne), which has the form [symbol] in the inscription of Golgi, and also with the Hitt.i.te [symbol] or [symbol] which Dr. Hyde Clarke once suggested to me was intended to represent the organs of generation.

Mr. Waller, in his work ent.i.tled ”Monumental Crosses,” describes the Swastika as having been known in India as a sacred symbol many centuries before our Lord, and used as the distinguis.h.i.+ng badge of a religious sect calling themselves ”Followers of the Mystic Cross.” Subsequently, he says, it was adopted by the followers of Buddha and was still later used by Christians at a very early period, being first introduced on Christian monuments in the sixth century. But Mr. Waring says that in this he is not correct, as it was found in some of the early paintings in the Roman catacombs, particularly on the habit of a _Fossor_, or gravedigger, given by D'Agincourt.

Pugin, in his ”Glossary of Ornament,” under the t.i.tle ”Fylfot,” says that in Tibet the Swastika was used as a representation of G.o.d crucified for the human race, citing as his authority F. Augustini Antonii Georgii.[35]