Swastika

Meaning of Swastika

Swastika derives from the Sanskrit svastika meaning happiness, pleasure and good luck.

Other alternative ways of naming the symbol are: Black spider – as called by several people in Western Europe; Crooked Cross and Gamada Cross or on hooks.

It is a mystical symbol found in different cultures at different times, from the Hopi Indians to the Aztecs, from the Celts to the Buddhists, from the Greeks to the Hindus.

Some researchers believe it has a special value, as it is found in many cultures without contact with each other.

Geometrically, it can be defined as an irregular icosagon (20-sided polygon). They have very distinct graphic details. The arms have variable width and are often straight (not mandatory). Several drawings use figures with three lines. Other so-called swastikas have no arms and consist of crosses with curved lines. The Islamic and Maltese symbols look more like propellers than swastikas. The Celtic hardly resembles one. In China there is a quadruple orientation symbol, which follows the cardinal points. In Japan, (卍 manji), it is used to represent temples and shrines on maps, as well as in other Far Eastern countries. The Buddhist and Hopi swastikas look like mirror reflections of the Nazi symbol. The Nazi has arms, pointing clockwise, going to the right and rotates the figure so that one of the arms is at the top. The proportions are also fixed: fixed on a 5×5 grid.

History of the Swastika

It was recognized in an important archaeological work by Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered this image in the ancient site where the city of Troy was located, and was then associated with the ancestral migrations of the Proto-Indo-European people of the Aryans. He made a connection between these finds and ancient Germanic vases, and theorized that the swastika was a significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors, uniting ancient Germanic and Greek and Vedic cultures. The couple William Thomas and Kate Pavitt speculated that the spread of the swastika among different world cultures (India, Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe) pointed to a common origin, possibly from Atlantis.

The Nazis used these ideas, from the beginning of the movements called völkisch, adopting the swastika as a symbol of Aryan identity – groups originating in northern Europe.

The swastika survives as a symbol of neo-Nazi groups or as a way for some activist groups to offend their opponents.

In Brazil, its use for Nazi purposes constitutes a crime, according to law 9,459, of 1997, in accordance with the first paragraph of article 20:

§ 1 Manufacture, sell, distribute or broadcast symbols, emblems, ornaments, badges or propaganda that use the swastika or gamma cross, for the purposes of promoting Nazism.

The penalty is two years to five years in prison and a fine.