THERE is a symbol above the entrance door of the Lakshmi Marayan temple in New Delhi, India. And again, over the entranceway to a Bali temple of Indonesia. It appears on weights of the Ashanti people in Africa. You will also find it on magical chains of North American Indians. It can be seen on a depiction of the footprints of Buddha. A Roman Catholic abbot used it as his personal coat of arms. And Adolf Hitler made it the emblem of the Third Reich of Germany. Yes, it is the swastika.

From where did the swastika get its name? In Indian Buddhism the form of the symbol with angles to the right is called “swastika.” This is derived from the Sanskrit term “svasti,” meaning “object of well-being.”

But from where did these churches of Christendom and their clergy borrow the symbol? It should not surprise us greatly that the swastika, as many other symbols, was adopted from pagan sources.

The early Christians rejected the use of such symbols. This was once voiced in these words: “Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners and flags of your camps, what else are they but crosses gilded and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it.”​—The Octavius of Minucius Felix, chap. 29, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 191.

So the swastika did not originate with the early Christians, but comes from a pagan source. What was the meaning of this ancient symbol?

Symbol of Fertility and Life

In the Lower Danube area (Siebenbuergen, Romania) earthen vessels with representations of swastikas upon them have been found. Swastikas have also come to light in excavations at Troy, an ancient city of Asia Minor.

In the same cultural period in which the swastika appears in Troy and Romania, idol plastics related to the fertility cult come to the fore. The plastics are often nearly identical to those of the Near and Middle East. The manner in which the swastika is located on the bodies of female plastics at Troy indicates that it served as a symbol of fertility and life.

Further, in the trench graves of Mycenae, Greece, the swastika is found on rich golden jewelry. It also appears on coins. In a funeral scene depicted on an Athenian vase, three swastikas can be seen above the horse pulling the hearse. Goddesses of fertility found in tombs wear the symbol on their throats and breasts. On a sarcophagus we can see the “mistress of life,” who later became known as Artemis, surrounded by swastikas. It also seems to have been associated with the lotus flower and decorated the garment of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, called Venus by the Romans.

So, at Troy and in its representations in the Aegean area, the swastika conveyed the idea of fertility and life.

The Swastika’s Birthplace

In 1931 the results of excavations relative to the culture of the Indus Valley in Southern Asia were published. At Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa the remnants of a highly developed state culture were unearthed, a culture that was in bloom long before our Common Era. Seals with symbols of obvious religious nature were found, including some depictions of the swastika. The seal finds have been assigned to the third century B.C.E.

Of interest is what archaeologist V. Gordon Childe has to say about swastikas found in the Indus Valley: “The swastika and the cross, common on stamps and plaques, were religious or magical symbols as in Babylonia and Elam in the earliest prehistoric period.”​—New Light on the Most Ancient East, by V. Gordon Childe, pp. 184, 185.

The swastika, then, must have had its origin in Mesopotamia. Swastika findings at Samarra, north of Baghdad, on the Tigris, and in early settlement stratum of Susa or Shushan (Neh. 1:1; Esther 1:2) point to a very ancient origin of the symbol in Mesopotamia. Yes, the swastika goes back to the ancient religious center of Babylon.

[Picture on page 22]

Swastikas on a ceramic from Susa