History's unfair treatment of the Swastika, and my own story

[Acinonyx]

Before I start, I'd like everyone to know (especially those that do not live in North America/Europe) that this is a somewhat delicate religious/political subject. As always, I'd appreciate it if you were to read through my entire post before making a particularly strong comment. I'll try not to make it too long.

 

 

 

As far as I know, these are my words entirely...no outside info sources. Please do tell me if you know any of this to be wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

So, to start off, I'm a Hindu (Indian nationality) living outside my native country, India. My family and I are pretty devout - we go to temples, worship, perform rituals...all that good stuff. Recently, we bought a new minivan and as is custom, we drove it to the temple to be inaugurated and "blessed" with long life. The truth is, while modern Hindu's do not put too much faith in rituals such as these, they do it as per tradition and to see that their culture doesn't die off. So when our car's inaugurating ritual was done, we decided to go out to eat for dinner. My dad parked the van in a well lit place so he could keep an eye on it while we were in the restaurant. When we had finished and came out, we were surprised to see some random people standing around our car, staring at us with disbelief and perhaps disgust. Just then, we noticed that the priest at the temple had drawn a large swastika on our car's hood with turmeric paste, as is customary. Some people even came up and asked us if we were pro-Nazi and were trying to make some sort of statement. It took us quite a bit of time to explain to everyone that the Swastika is in fact a very sacred symbol in Hinduism, and is painted on houses, cars, doorsteps...everywhere in order to bring luck and happiness. We were very surprised to see how the Swastika had garnered such negative feelings from people in the United States when in India, it was so auspicious.

 

 

 

So why is it that the same symbol that is sacred to Hindus is looked down upon by Westerners? Coincidence? Nope. The Swastika is originally Hindu. It's ours. It's origins lie with the invasion of India by the Europeans several thousand years ago, when they brought religion, culture, and new ideas to the subcontinent and its residents, known as the A r y a n people (sorry, i have to go around the censor). It was here that the ancient language Sanskrit was born...it actually came from the roots of Latin and other romance languages. This is why many of the words in Sanskrit and Latin sound similar. Along with language, the Christian invaders brought the Cross, which eventually evolved into the Swastika after a long period of time. It became a part of Hinduism and has been ever since.

 

 

 

But during World War II, the Swastika was claimed by Adolf Hitler, who used it to represent Nazism, an autocracy with extreme opposition to other religions (like Judaism). He put this symbol on his flags and it became widely feared as the symbol of Hitler and his ruthless Nazis. This passed on to the rest of the world, including North America where the feeling of hatred towards Hitler and the Nazis is still harbored, perhaps by Holocaust victims and their descendants.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's my point. If you ever spot a Swastika around, on a car, in front of a house, on a wall, don't immediately mistake it as a Nazi anti-Semitic symbol. Be aware that the Hindu Swastika has a rich history and is in fact very sacred on the other side of the globe (if you live in the Western Hemisphere). And more generally, I'd like to address the fact that symbols or words can have a much deeper meaning than what is apparent...the Swastika is just one small example.

 

 

 

EDIT: I just realized that it might be useful to show the traditional symbol used by Hindus:

 

 

 

[Oy_the_Great]

So do you know why Hitler chose the symbol? I'd like to know that.

[Acinonyx]

So do you know why Hitler chose the symbol? I'd like to know that.

 

 

 

Ooo...sorry, I think I forgot to mention this. Hitler believed that having Aryan heritage was noble and that the Jews, who did not have this heritage, did not deserve to live in his land. Something like that.

[Militaris]

Yeap that is correct.

 

 

 

I remember when I saw them in a India friends of mine room. I knew their meaning to Hindus, but I still had him up about them. Yeah I can be cruel.

 

 

 

Like for most subjects, wikipedia has a good article on them.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastikas

[xxsheepxx]

So do you know why Hitler chose the symbol? I'd like to know that.

 

 

 

well.. it's always a possibility that he thought it looked cool or appealing, or something.

[Oy_the_Great]

So do you know why Hitler chose the symbol? I'd like to know that.

 

 

 

Ooo...sorry, I think I forgot to mention this. Hitler believed that having Aryan heritage was noble and that the Jews, who did not have this heritage, did not deserve to live in his land. Something like that.

 

 

 

Oh, all right, so the Aryans were a race of Hindu people or something? :|

[____]

Nah, scandanavian or something around that rea. Old school "race" apparently.

 

 

 

I dunno the full details and can't be arsed looking.

[Zonorhc]

So do you know why Hitler chose the symbol? I'd like to know that.

 

 

 

Ooo...sorry, I think I forgot to mention this. Hitler believed that having Aryan heritage was noble and that the Jews, who did not have this heritage, did not deserve to live in his land. Something like that.

 

 

 

Oh, all right, so the Aryans were a race of Hindu people or something? :|

 

It's a catch-all term for "white" people, really, but in this context they were a caucasian ethnic group which came south to the Indian subcontinent and drove away the darker-skinned natives as they settled into their new territory. They did this by having better technology and greater organisation, and it was their beliefs that formed the root of the caste system as it stands in India today.

 

 

 

Some of this may be shaky as I haven't actually studied Indian history beyond casual reading here and there.

 

 

 

Hitler chose the symbol as it represented to him the social order that he believed in: that white people would conquer and subjugate "lesser races" as they sought better lives for themselves.

[Striker6]

Yeah i've heard of this before. Shame people in Germany in the 1930's didn't figure it out. Probably would have stopped his chances of getting into power. "Excuse me Adolf, is it true that the swastika you supposedly designed is infact stolen from the Hindu's? The very people you claim are inferior?"

 

 

 

"Erm, no comment".

[unknownmasterofnothing]

I made a swastika in class once. It looked cool and I was going to use it as a ninja star. Then someone told me about hitler and then I threw away a perfectly cool symbol.

[BlueLancer]

Most educated people know this; The swastika has been used as a positive symbol for thousands of years originating in the Indian steppes and it's early culture.

 

 

 

However today the symbol is even forbidden in some countries such as Germany due to the atrocities of the national socialists of last century (nazi), and it is seen as filthy and disgusting. So while it is your prompt right to excercise your religion as you see fit, don't expect every person to know the true story behind the now-plagued symbol. :(

[Kant]

I find that people just need to take a step back and actually think about what they are going to confront people about before actually doing it. It might save them looking ignorant.

 

 

 

Good post, a very enjoyable read.

[Necromagus]

When I was in Rome with my school, we visited the ancient port city of Ostia Antica. As a practical exam for the classical cultural studies class, we had to give a short tour of various historical sites in the city. My subject was Ostia. One of the locations I used in my tour was the square of the guilds. It's a large square built directly behind the amphitheatre. Surrounding a small temple to the goddess of commerce there were booths that belonged to various guilds and merchants operating from the city. It's not certain whether these booths were used to just entertain customers before and after theatre shows or to actually do business. The mosaic floors of these booths have been very well preserved. One of the booths, probably belonging to a cleric or a follower of the cult of Isis, has several swastikas on its floor.

[Guest XplsvBam]

Symbol- something that stands for something else.

 

 

 

The swastica was used to stand for something bad. Therefore the symbol of a swastica is bad.

 

 

 

You have to look on the macroscopic level. Macroscopically the swastica is evil.

[Kant]

Symbol- something that stands for something else.

 

 

 

The swastica was used to stand for something bad. Therefore the symbol of a swastica is bad.

 

 

 

You have to look on the macroscopic level. Macroscopically the swastica is evil.

 

 

 

The swastica was used to stand for something good. Did you read his post? The Nazis were an exception to the rule.

[Oy_the_Great]

Symbol- something that stands for something else.

 

 

 

The swastica was used to stand for something bad. Therefore the symbol of a swastica is bad.

 

 

 

You have to look on the macroscopic level. Macroscopically the swastica is evil.

 

 

 

Of course you did not read what he said. The sign was used to for good whishing in the Hindu rituals.

 

Hitler stole it, why; I still haven't heard from the creator of the topic, and then it became the symbol of the Nazi rule. Of course 95% of the people throughout the world don't realise that it originated in India and you're right that that's why it's considered bad.

 

That's what the entire topic is about: to broaden your mind and to change that narrow point of view.

[gryphon618]

I am a hindu (living outside of India, like Acinonyx), and I know the swastika as a hindu symbol, though many people see it as a Nazi sign. I once had a friend over, she saw a painting of a swastika, and she said "Are you a Nazi?" I had to explain that Hitler stole it from us (in a way he did.)

 

 

 

All our history teachers have been quite good in explaining though, that Hitler stole the swastika from the hindus, whenever we learn about either WWII or India. I thank them for that.

[KCHughes]

As far as why Hitler chose the swastika, he had an obsession with ancient artifacts or occultic things...most government building built in 30s Germany were modeled after Indian/Persian architecture, and they created Nazi rituals that followed the same patterns in ancient India and Persia. And Indians are traditionally considered to be in the Indo-European group of cultures. Hitler thought that, since Indians had Aryan ancestry, that he should use their symbol of luck and good health to reporesent the Nazi empire. Hitler basically took a legitimate political party and turned it into a cult.

 

 

 

Yes, the swastika means good things in other cultures. Like if you make the "OK" symbol with your hand in other countries, it's seen as offensive. It's OK to look at the swastika as a representation of something that was evil, but it DOES have other meanings, keep in mind.

[BlueLancer]

Symbol- something that stands for something else.

 

 

 

The swastica was used to stand for something bad. Therefore the symbol of a swastica is bad.

 

 

 

You have to look on the macroscopic level. Macroscopically the swastica is evil.

 

 

 

Do you think the nazis thought they were bad? Do you think the medieval christian crusaders and inquisitors, or the soldiers of the islamic crescent fighting Jihad thought of themselves as bad? Their symbols are still used in the modern world even though their symbol has at various times represented slaughter, rape, blood and injustice.

 

 

 

I have totally no idea what you mean by "looking on the macroscopic level". Sounds like pseudoscience to me; You might want to view the word's real meaning at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscopic. The swastika in the modern world is known by a huge amount of people (mostly hindus) still as a positive symbol, no matter how much we condemn it.

[Oy_the_Great]

As far as why Hitler chose the swastika, he had an obsession with ancient artifacts or occultic things...most government building built in 30s Germany were modeled after Indian/Persian architecture, and they created Nazi rituals that followed the same patterns in ancient India and Persia. And Indians are traditionally considered to be in the Indo-European group of cultures. Hitler thought that, since Indians had LameBotUser ancestry, that he should use their symbol of luck and good health to reporesent the Nazi empire. Hitler basically took a legitimate political party and turned it into a cult.

 

 

 

Yes, the swastika means good things in other cultures. Like if you make the "OK" symbol with your hand in other countries, it's seen as offensive. It's OK to look at the swastika as a representation of something that was evil, but it DOES have other meanings, keep in mind.

 

 

 

Ah thanks for the explanation, I've learned something useful on TIF today.

 

Also, the peace-sign known from the hippies actually is the rune of death from Germanic tribes : And don't pat a child on the hat in Indonesia, it's very denigrating apparently...

[BlueLancer]

As far as why Hitler chose the swastika, he had an obsession with ancient artifacts or occultic things...most government building built in 30s Germany were modeled after Indian/Persian architecture, and they created Nazi rituals that followed the same patterns in ancient India and Persia. And Indians are traditionally considered to be in the Indo-European group of cultures. Hitler thought that, since Indians had LameBotUser ancestry, that he should use their symbol of luck and good health to reporesent the Nazi empire. Hitler basically took a legitimate political party and turned it into a cult.

 

 

 

Yes, the swastika means good things in other cultures. Like if you make the "OK" symbol with your hand in other countries, it's seen as offensive. It's OK to look at the swastika as a representation of something that was evil, but it DOES have other meanings, keep in mind.

 

 

 

Ah thanks for the explanation, I've learned something useful on TIF today.

 

Also, the peace-sign known from the hippies actually is the rune of death from Germanic tribes : And don't pat a child on the hat in Indonesia, it's very denigrating apparently...

 

 

 

Yep, also in Japan. 8-) So if you stay there, don't think it's "cute" to do that to anybody (though, people under the age of 30 are usually more understanding towards western cultural habits).

 

 

 

LameBotUser ancestry (tip it censor for runescape tool)

 

 

 

:lol: Aryan ancestry? But yes, the nazi party was seriously obsessed with ancient mythology, runes, whatnot... I can safely say politics can get quite distorted when you combine reality with old viking runes...

 

 

 

I must admit though, my opinion on the street would be at first biased, because I have VERY rarely if at all seen the swastika being used in a good fashion. Now that I think of it, I can't recall an occassion (maybe once when the hare krishna were having their yearly celebration on the streets). But you can't condemn people who sincerely hold it as a part of their religion :?

[Oy_the_Great]

Ow my, did I just spell 'head' as 'hat'? #-o Must've been confused.

 

And I think we all agree the 99% of the swastikas used in the western world aren't there to bring joy to the people :(

[weezcake]

I've known this for years (I guess I've never realized how much I've learned from living in San Francisco). Hopefully this'll open some eyes :wink:

[Bmw]

I'm surprised to hear how many people didn't know that the swastika wasn't developed by the Nazi's :shock:

 

 

 

I'm also a Hindu, and I've seen it here and there, no one has made a big deal of it. I figured most people knew. However, with that being said, it's not like the symbol is being used all over the place in Indian-Western areas, as we all recognize it as a sign of the Nazi's :wall:

 

 

 

Do you know if they use it commonly in India?

[Acinonyx]

I went to a huge Buddhist temple in Vancouver recently when I was vacationing there...it turns out they actually use the swastika too though they call it something else, I believe. It also looks slightly different.

 

 

 

Note that Buddhism actually originated in India and moved further east to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. It's very intriguing to find how symbols travel and evolve as they move from culture to culture.