The Swastika Part 4

Prof. Max Muller[80] refers to the discovery by Prof. Percy Gardner of one of the coins of Mesembria, whereon the Swastika replaces the last two syllables of the word, and he regards this as decisive that in Greece the meaning of the Swastika was equivalent to the sun. This word, Mesembria, being translated _ville de midi_, means town or city of the south, or the sun. He cites from Mr. Thomas's paper on the "Indian Swastika and its Western Counterparts"[81] what he considers an equally decisive discovery made some years ago, wherein it was shown that the wheel, the emblem of the sun in motion, was replaced by the Swastika on certain coins; likewise on some of the Andhra coins and some punched gold coins noted by Sir Walter Elliott.[82] In these cases the circle or wheel alleged to symbolize the sun was replaced by the Swastika. The Swastika has been sometimes inscribed within the rings or normal circles representing what is said to be the four suns on Ujain patterns or coins (fig. 230). Other authorities have adopted the same view, and have extended it to include the lightning, the storm, the fire wheel, the sun chariot, etc. (See Ohnefalsch-Richter, p. 790.) This appears to be a _non sequitur_. All these speculations may be correct, and all these meanings may have been given to the Swastika, but the evidence submitted does not prove the fact.

There is in the case of the foregoing coins no evidence yet presented as to which sign, the wheel or the Swastika, preceded and which followed in point of time. The Swastika may have appeared first instead of last, and may not have been a subst.i.tution for the disk, but an original design. The disk employed, while possibly representing the sun in some places, may not have done so always nor in this particular case. It a.s.sumes too much to say that every time a small circle appears on an ancient object it represented the sun, and the same observation can be made with regard to symbols of the other elements. Until it shall have been satisfactorily established that the symbols represented these elements with practical unanimity, and that the Swastika actually and intentionally replaced it as such, the theory remains undemonstrated, the burden rests on those who take the affirmative side; and until these points shall have been settled with some degree of probability the conclusion is not warranted.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the various significations possible, one has but to turn to Chapter IV, on the various meanings given to the cross among American Indians, where it is shown that among these Indians the cross represented the four winds, the sun, stars, dwellings, the dragon fly, mide' society, flocks of birds, human form, maidenhood, evil spirit, and divers others.

Mr. Edward Thomas, in his work ent.i.tled "The Indian Swastika and its Western Counterparts,"[83] says:

As far as I have been able to trace or connect the various manifestations of this emblem [the Swastika], they one and all resolve themselves into the primitive conception of solar motion, which was intuitively a.s.sociated with the rolling or wheel-like projection of the sun through the upper or visible arc of the heavens, as understood and accepted in the crude astronomy of the ancients. The earliest phase of astronomical science we are at present in position to refer to, with the still extant aid of indigenous diagrams, is the Chaldean.

The representation of the sun in this system commences with a simple ring or outline circle, which is speedily advanced toward the impression of onward revolving motion by the insertion of a cross or four wheel-like spokes within the circ.u.mference of the normal ring. As the original Chaldean emblem of the sun was typified by a single ring, so the Indian mind adopted a similar definition, which remains to this day as the ostensible device or cast-mark of the modern Sauras or sun worshipers.

The same remarks are made in "Ilios" (pp. 353, 354).

The author will not presume to question, much less deny, the facts stated by this learned gentleman, but it is to be remarked that, on the theory of presumption, the circle might represent many other things than the sun, and unless the evidence in favor of the foregoing statement is susceptible of verification, the theory can hardly be accepted as conclusive. Why should not the circle represent other things than the sun? In modern astronomy the full moon is represented by the plain circle, while the sun, at least in heraldry, is always represented as a circle with rays. It is believed that the "cross or four wheel-like spokes" in the Chaldean emblem of the sun will be found to be rays rather than cross or spokes. A cast is in the U. S. National Museum (Cat. No. 154766) of an original specimen from Niffer, now in the Royal Museum, Berlin, of Shamash, the a.s.syrian G.o.d of the sun. He is represented on this monument by a solar disk, 4 inches in diameter, with eight rays similar to those of stars, their bases on a faint circle at the center, and tapering outwards to a point, the whole surrounded by another faint circle. This is evidence that the sun symbol of a.s.syria required rays as well as a circle. A similar representation of the sun G.o.d is found on a tablet discovered in the temple of the Sun G.o.d at Abu-Habba.[84]

Perrot and Chipiez[85] show a tablet from Sippara, of a king, Nabu-abal-iddin, 900 B. C., doing homage to the sun G.o.d (identified by the inscription), who is represented by bas-relief of a small circle in the center, with rays and lightning zigzags extending to an outer circle.

In view of these authorities and others which might be cited, it is questionable whether the plain circle was continuously a representation of the sun in the Chaldean or a.s.syrian astronomy. It is also doubtful whether, if the circle did represent the sun, the insertion of the cross or the four wheel-like spokes necessarily gave the impression of "onward revolving motion;" or whether any or all of the foregoing afford a satisfactory basis for the origin of the Swastika or for its relation to, or representation of, the sun or the sun G.o.d.

Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter[86] announces as his opinion that the Swastika in Cyprus had nearly always a signification more or less religious and sacred, though it may have been used as an ornament to fill empty s.p.a.ces.

He attributes to the _Croix swasticale_--or, as he calls it, _Croix cantonnee_--the equivalence of the solar disk, zigzag lightning, and double hatchet; while to the Swastika proper he attributes the signification of rain, storm, lightning, sun, light, seasons, and also that it lends itself easily to the solar disk, the fire wheel, and the sun chariot.

Greg[87] says:

Considered finally, it may be asked if the fylfot or gammadion was an early symbol of the sun, or, if only an emblem of the solar revolutions or in movements across the heavens, why it was drawn square rather than curved: The [Z], even if used in a solar sense, must have implied something more than, or something distinct from, the sun, whose proper and almost universal symbol was the circle. It was evidently more connected with the cross [cross] than with the circle [circle] or solar disk.

Dr. Brinton[88] considers the Swastika as derived from the cross rather than from the circle, and the author agrees that this is probable, although it may be impossible of demonstration either way.

Several authors, among the rest d'Alviella, Greg, and Thomas, have announced the theory of the evolution of the Swastika, beginning with the triskelion, thence to the tetraskelion, and so to the Swastika. A slight examination is sufficient to overturn this hypothesis. In the first place, the triskelion, which is the foundation of this hypothesis, made its first appearance on the coins of Lycia. But this appearance was within what is called the first period of coinage, to wit, between 700 and 480 B. C., and it did not become settled until the second, and even the third period, 280 to 240 B. C., when it migrated to Sicily. But the Swastika had already appeared in Armenia, on the hill of Hissarlik, in the terramares of northern Italy, and on the hut-urns of southern Italy many hundred, possibly a thousand or more, years prior to that time. Count d'Alviella, in his plate 3 (see Chart I, p. 794), a.s.signs it to a period of the fourteenth or thirteenth century B. C., with an unknown and indefinite past behind it. It is impossible that a symbol which first appeared in 480 B. C. could have been the ancestor of one which appeared in 1400 or 1300 B. C., nearly a thousand years before.

William Simpson[89] makes observations upon the latest discoveries regarding the Swastika and gives his conclusion:

* * * The finding of the Swastika in America gives a very wide geographical s.p.a.ce that is included by the problem connected with it, but it is wider still, for the Swastika is found over the most of the habitable world, almost literally "from China to Peru," and it can be traced back to a very early period. The latest idea formed regarding the Swastika is that it may be a form of the old wheel symbolism and that it represents a solar movement, or perhaps, in a wider sense, the whole celestial movement of the stars. The Dharmachakra, or Buddhist wheel, of which the so-called "praying wheel" of the Lamas of Thibet is only a variant, can now be shown to have represented the solar motion. It did not originate with the Buddhists; they borrowed it from the Brahminical system to the Veda, where it is called "the wheel of the sun." I have lately collected a large amount of evidence on this subject, being engaged in writing upon it, and the numerous pa.s.sages from the old Brahminical authorities leave no doubt in the matter. The late Mr. Edward Thomas * * * and Prof. Percy Gardner * * * declared that on some Andhra gold coins and one from Mesembria, Greece, the part of the word which means day, or when the sun shines, is represented by the Swastika. These details will be found in a letter published in the "Athenaeum" of August 20, 1892, written by Prof. Max Muller, who affirms that it "is decisive" as to the meaning of the symbol in Greece. This evidence may be "decisive" for India and Greece, but it does not make us quite certain about other parts of the world. Still it raises a strong presumption that its meaning is likely to be somewhat similar wherever the symbol is found.

It is now a.s.sumed that the Triskelion or Three Legs of the Isle of Man is only a variant of the Swastika. * * * There are many variants besides this in which the legs, or limbs, differ in number, and they may all be cla.s.sed as whorls, and were possibly all, more or less, forms intended originally to express circular motion. As the subject is too extensive to be fully treated here, and many ill.u.s.trations would be necessary, to those wishing for further details I would recommend a work just published ent.i.tled "The Migration of Symbols,"

by Count Goblet d'Alviella, with an introduction by Sir George Birdwood. The frontispiece of the book is a representation of Apollo, from a vase in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, and on the middle of Apollo's breast there is a large and prominent Swastika. In this we have another instance going far to show its solar significance. While accepting these new interpretations of the symbol, I am still inclined to the notion that the Swastika may, at the same time, have been looked upon in some cases as a cross--that is, a pre-Christian cross, which now finds acceptance by some authorities as representing the four cardinal points. The importance of the cardinal points in primitive symbolism appears to me to have been very great, and has not as yet been fully realized. This is too large a matter to deal with here. All I can state is, that the wheel in India was connected with the t.i.tle of a _Chakravartin_--from _Chakra_, a wheel--the t.i.tle meaning a supreme ruler, or a universal monarch, who ruled the four quarters of the world, and on his coronation he had to drive his chariot, or wheel, to the four cardinal points to signify his conquest of them. Evidence of other ceremonies of the same kind in Europe can be produced. From instances such as these, I am inclined to a.s.sume that the Swastika, as a cross, represented the four quarters over which the solar power by its revolving motion carried its influence.

ORIGIN AND HABITAT.

Prehistoric archaeologists have found in Europe many specimens of ornamental sculpture and engraving belonging to the Paleolithic age, but the cross is not known in any form, Swastika or other. In the Neolithic age, which spread itself over nearly the entire world, with many geometric forms of decoration, no form of the cross appears in times of high antiquity as a symbol or as indicating any other than an ornamental purpose. In the age of bronze, however, the Swastika appears, intentionally used, as a symbol as well as an ornament. Whether its first appearance was in the Orient, and its spread thence throughout prehistoric Europe, or whether the reverse was true, may not now be determined with certainty. It is believed by some to be involved in that other warmly disputed and much-discussed question as to the locality of origin and the mode and routes of dispersion of Aryan peoples. There is evidence to show that it belongs to an earlier epoch than this, and relates to the similar problem concerning the locality of origin and the mode and routes of the dispersion of bronze. Was bronze discovered in eastern Asia and was its migration westward through Europe, or was it discovered on the Mediterranean, and its spread thence? The Swastika spread through the same countries as did the bronze, and there is every reason to believe them to have proceeded contemporaneously--whether at their beginning or not, is undeterminable.

The first appearance of the Swastika was apparently in the Orient, precisely in what country it is impossible to say, but probably in central and southeastern Asia among the forerunners or predecessors of the Bramins and Buddhists. At all events, a religious and symbolic signification was attributed to it by the earliest known peoples of these localities.

M. Michael Zmigrodzki, a Polish scholar, public librarian at Sucha, near Cracow, prepared and sent to the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago a ma.n.u.script chart in French, showing his opinion of the migration of the Swastika, which was displayed in the Woman's Building. It was arranged in groups: The prehistoric (or Pagan) and Christian. These were divided geographically and with an attempt at chronology, as follows:

I. Prehistoric: 1. India and Bactria.

2. Cyprus, Rhodes.

3. North Europe.

4. Central Europe.

5. South Europe.

6. Asia Minor.

7. Greek and Roman epoch--Numismatics.

II. Christian: 8. Gaul--Numismatics.

9. Byzantine.

10. Merovingian and Carlovingian.

11. Germany.

12. Poland and Sweden.

13. Great Britain.

Lastly he introduces a group of the Swastika in the nineteenth century. He presented figures of Swastikas from these localities and representing these epochs. He had a similar display at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which at its close was deposited in the St. Germain Prehistoric Museum. I met M. Zmigrodzki at the Tenth International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology in Paris, and heard him present the results of his investigations on the Swastika. I have since corresponded with him, and he has kindly sent me separates of his paper published in the Archives fur Ethnographie, with 266 ill.u.s.trations of the Swastika; but on asking his permission to use some of the information in the chart at Chicago, he informed me he had already given the ma.n.u.script chart and the right to reproduce it to the Chicago Folk-Lore Society. The secretary of this society declined to permit it to pa.s.s out of its possession, though proffering inspection of it in Chicago.

In his elaborate dissertation Count Goblet d'Alviella[90] shows an earlier and prehistoric existence of the Swastika before its appearance on the hill of Hissarlik. From this earlier place of origin it, according to him, spread to the Bronze age terramares of northern Italy. All this was prior to the thirteenth century B. C. From the hill of Hissarlik it spread east and west; to the east into Lycaonia and Caucasus, to the west into Mycenae and Greece; first on the pottery and then on the coins. From Greece it also spread east and west; east to Asia Minor and west to Thrace and Macedonia. From the terramares he follows it through the Villanova epoch, through Etruria and Grand Greece, to Sicily, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, to all of which migration he a.s.signs various dates down to the second century B. C. It developed westward from Asia Minor to northern Africa and to Rome, with evidence in the Catacombs; on the eastward it goes into India, Persia, China, Tibet, and j.a.pan. All this can be made apparent upon examination of the plate itself. It is introduced as Chart I, p. 794.

The author enters into no discussion with Count d'Alviella over the correctness or completeness of the migrations set forth in his chart. It will be conceded, even by its author, to be largely theoretical and impossible to verify by positive proof. He will only contend that there is a probability of its correctness. It is doubted whether he can maintain his proposition of the constant presence or continued appearance of the Swastika on altars, idols, priestly vestments, and sepulchral urns, and that this demonstrates the Swastika to have always possessed the attributes of a religious symbol. It appears to have been used more frequently upon the smaller and more insignificant things of everyday life--the household utensils, the arms, weapons, the dress, the fibulae, and the pottery; and while this may be consonant with the attributes of the talisman or amulet or charm, it is still compatible with the theory of the Swastika being a sign or symbol for benediction, blessing, good fortune, or good luck; and that it was rather this than a religious symbol.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHART I.--_Probable introduction of the Swastika into different countries, according to Count Goblet d'Alviella._

["La Migration des Symboles," pl. 3.]]

Count Goblet d'Alviella, in the fourth section of the second chapter[91]

relating to the country of its origin, argues that the Swastika sign was employed by all the Aryans except the Persians. This omission he explains by showing that the Swastika in all other lands stood for the sun or for the sun-G.o.d, while the Aryans of Persia had other signs for the same thing--the _Crux ansata_ and the winged globe. His conclusion is[92] that there were two zones occupied with different symbols, the frontier between them being from Persia, through Cyprus, Rhodes, and Asia Minor, to Libya; that the first belonged to the Greek civilization, which employed the Swastika as a sun symbol; the second to the Egypto-Babylonian, which employed the _Crux ansata_ and the winged globe as sun symbols.

Professor Sayce, in his preface to "Troja," says:[93]

The same symbol [the Swastika], as is well known, occurs on the Archaic pottery of Cyprus * * * as well as upon the prehistoric antiquities of Athens and Mykenae [same, "Ilios," p. 353], but it was entirely unknown to Babylonia, to a.s.syria, to Phoenicia, and to Egypt.

It must therefore either have originated in Europe and spread eastward through Asia Minor or have been disseminated westward from the primitive home of the Hitt.i.tes. The latter alternative is the more probable; but whether it is so or not, the presence of the symbol in the land of the aegean indicates a particular epoch and the influence of a pre-Phoenician culture.

Dr. Schliemann[94] reports that "Rev. W. Brown Keer observed the Swastika innumerable times in the most ancient Hindu temples, especially those of the Jainas."

Max Muller cites the following paragraph by Professor Sayce:[95]

It is evident to me that the sign found at Hissarlik is identical with that found at Mycenae and Athens, as well as on the prehistoric pottery of Cyprus (Di Cesnola, Cyprus, pls. 44 and 47), since the general artistic character of the objects with which this sign is a.s.sociated in Cyprus and Greece agrees with that of the objects discovered in Troy. The Cyprian vase [fig. 156, this paper] figured in Di Cesnola's "Cyprus," pl. 45, 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 figure of the stags. The fact that it is drawn within the v.u.l.v.a of the leaden image on the Asiatic G.o.ddess shown in fig. 226 ("Ilios," fig. 125 this paper) seems to show that it was a symbol of generation.

Count Goblet d'Alviella,[96] citing Albert Dumont[97] and Perrot and Chipiez,[98] says:

The Swastika appears in Greece, as well as in Cyprus and Rhodes, first on the pottery, with geometric decorations, which form the second period in Greek ceramics. From that it pa.s.ses to a later period, where the decoration is more artistic and the appearance of which coincides with the development of the Phoenician influences on the coasts of Greece.

Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter, in a paper devoted to the consideration of the Swastika in Cyprus,[99] expresses the opinion that the emigrant or commercial Phenicians traveling in far eastern countries brought the Swastika by the sea route of the Persian Gulf to Asia Minor and Cyprus, while, possibly, other people, brought it by the overland route from central Asia, Asia Minor, and Hissarlik, and afterwards by migration to Cyprus, Carthage, and the north of Africa.

Professor Goodyear says:[100]

The true home of the Swastika is the Greek geometric style, as will be immediately obvious to every expert who examines the question through the study of that style. In seeking the home of a symbol, we should consider where it appears in the largest dimension and where it appears in the most formal and prominent way. The Greek geometric vases are the only monuments on which the Swastika systematically appears in panels exclusively a.s.signed to it (pl. 60, fig. 13; and pl.

56, fig. 4). There are no other monuments on which the Swastika can be found in a dimension taking up one-half the height of the entire object (pl. 56, fig. 4). The ordinary size of the Swastika, in very primitive times, is under a third of an inch in diameter. They are found in Greek geometric pottery 2 or 3 inches in diameter, but they also appear in the informal scattering way (pl. 61, fig. 4) which characterizes the Swastika in other styles.

The Swastika dates from the earliest diffusion of the Egyptian meander in the basin of the Mediterranean, and it is a profound remark of De Morgan (Mission Scientifique au Caucase) that the area of the Swastika appears to be coextensive with the area of bronze. In northern prehistoric Europe, where the Swastika has attracted considerable attention, it is distinctly connected with the bronze culture derived from the south. When found on prehistoric pottery of the north, the southern home of its beginnings is equally clear.

In seeking the home of a symbol, we should consider not only the nature of its appearance, but also where it is found in the largest amount, for this shows the center of vogue and power--that is to say, the center of diffusion. The vogue of the Swastika at Troy is not as great as its vogue in Cyprian Greek pottery (pl. 60, fig. 15) and Rhodian pottery (pl. 60, fig. 2). * * * It is well known to Melian vases (pl. 60, fig. 8) and to archaic Greek vases (pl. 61, fig. 12), but its greatest prominence is on the pottery of the Greek geometric style (pl. 60, fig. 13; pl. 56, fig. 4; pl. 61, figs. 1 and 4; and figs. 173 and 171). * * *