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As a result of a heated argument two days ago, I got some more information about the history of the Swastika. Feel free to add any information you have.

Why and what is this all about? The European Union gives the ban of the Swastika in Europe a second try.
The Swastika is a symbol used in almost all rituals of the Hindus (birth, marriage and death). By banning it, they cannot go through with their religion.

Don’t get me wrong. Like I said before, I don’t underestimate nor do I want Neo-Nazism to spread even more in Europe. But banning this symbol doesn’t solve anything in my opinion. It is only a little gesture of our great politicians to show the public that they are doing something.

Banning the symbol would mean also that you can’t post any pictures of Buddhist or Hindu temples from all over the world, containing a Swastika, on any European website any more.

Feel free to argue the point with me, but try to avoid insults. If you don’t understand any of my points, ask and give me the chance to clarify what I mean before attacking me. Thanks.

The Swastika

The Swastika is one of the oldest and most wide spread religious symbols in the world.
The first ones found in the Ukraine are 10 000 years old. They were carvings on Mammon’s tusks.
They are also found on the oldest Indian coins.
In Persia, Asia and Greece the Swastika was printed on coins as a symbol for the “axis mundi” (lat. world axis).
It also appeared as a holy symbol of the goddess Artemis in the 7th century before Christ.

The symbol also represented a lot of other gods and goddesses from Island to Japan and from Scandinavia to North Africa.
It already got used a lot in the 13th century before Christ in Troy and Mykene.
The Sanskrit word “Svastika” means “so be it” or “Amen". In Japan it was the symbol for the number 10.000, because it was for the Japanese wise ones the highest number they could imagine. Because of that it had for them also the meaning of “endless greatness” or “Infinity".

There exist two types of Swastika: the left turning Moon-Swastika and the right turning Sun-Swastika.
The Moon-Swastika was naturally bound with the path of the left hand of the goddess, the Sun-Swastika with the right hand of the god.
For Hindus the Sun-Swastika represented the god Ganesha, the Moon-Swastika his virgin bride Kali-Maya, the mother of Buddha.
As a reincarnation of his holy father Buddha showed the symbol of the cross on both arms.
The Tibetan Buddhists say, the right hand Swastika stands for the Redeemer, the left hand Swastika for “Witchcraft” or the “Magic” of the mother Maya.

The female Moon-Swastika received the name Sauvastika and stands for the autumn half of the year, in which the power of the sun subsides: the male Sun-Swastika stands for the Spring half of the year with sun getting stronger. Because the female Sauvastika represented not only the low standing, dying sun, but also the resurrection at the winter solstice, she sometimes also stood for rebirth.
In Japan the new born Amida “the Buddha of the immeasurable light” a left turning Swastika scratched in his chest.
A similar left turning Swastika was the hammer, which was printed as Thor’s sign on old Nordic coins. Thor was one of the gods which supposedly came from Troy; Troyan reliefs of the great goddess show a Swastika on her belly, surrounded by the female triangle as an indication of the god hidden in her belly who was waiting for his next rebirth.

The early Christians took over the Swastika as a symbol of Christ and named it “crux dissimulata” (disguised cross"). This cross was also named “crux gammata", “gammadion” or “gamma cross", because it showed the letter gamma in four fold repetition.
The Anglo Saxons named it “fylfot"; which you can translate as “four-foot” as well as “fill foot". In the first case it indicates the four holy pillars at the four ends of the earth; in the second case it hints to the Christian tradition to fill the foot of a church window wit fylfot-ornaments.
In old Danish churches the Swastika was usually found as a decoration around the baptismal font.
On medieval coat of arms it was shown often as a “Hakenkreuz", “croix gamme” or “croix cramponnee". But the knights that carried the Swastika on their coat of armor couldn’t be sure if they were carrying the symbol for the cross of Christ or the symbol for the cross of Thor, which was revered from Germany up to the Scandinavian villages in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

In the 20ties of the last century the National Socialists took over the symbol as the emblem of their party, because they thought that it was a purely arien symbol.

One version of the Swastika was used as a symbol of the old “Feme"court (from “Vehme” = punishment), which in medieval times worked as a civil tribunal to hunt down heretics and which later became one with the Inquisition.
The activities of the “Feme"court stayed secret; even during the times of Napoleon “Feme"courts existed in form of secret societies, which judged and executed traitors and politic opponents in a fast trial - like for example the Sicilian black hand.
Anti Semitic secret societies formed themselves from these “Feme"courts in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria - the front runners for the National Socialists.

(Translated from “Das geheime Wissen der Frauen", Barbara G. Walker ISBN 3-86150-006-X)