The Swastika as a Peace Symbol

Lloyd

I don't know if I mentioned it before but I collect all sorts of items which use the Swastika in the non Nazi sense, ie as a peace or good luck symbol. I have some nice Carltonware and other items but this is my first numismatic venture - and it is DEFINITELY my oldest item...

From Josh at CIVITAS

Civitas Description:

Ancient India Taxila Circa 200 BC--#AC5140
Æ 1 1/2 Karshapana 22mm. 12.76g. Taxila mint

Lion standing left; stupa (sacred hill) before, swastika above; all within incuse square

Elephant right, stupa symbol above

Mitchiner ACW 4401

VF. Brown and earthen patina. Choice strike

Bought this after Josh lured me to his website with an I.D. on one of my coins

FACT: Budda's footprints were rumoured to be swastikas (boring huh?)

L

ajaan

Fascinating. Very facinating.

Lloyd

Don
I was expecting you to say :

"Oh no. it's aethelred the second the second...."

L

ajaan

<< <i>FACT: Budda's footprints were rumoured to be swastikas >>


I found this to be very interesting. My son was born Buddhist ( he lived the first ten years of his life in Thailand) and I have never heard that before.

Aethelbore's post are much more boring than yours.

theboz11

the Swasticka Symbol Used in Germany is the mirror image of the Good Luck symbol used on this piece and by many native Americam Indians in their artworks. I have seen Buddhas with those symbols on their chests.

lordmarcovan

I looked up a little on the history of the swastika. (I don't know who or what Falun Dafa is, but they have a good article on swastikas on their site... and it shows a coin, too!)

Until Hitler and his cronies spoiled the symbol for everyone else, the swastika was a symbol of good, not evil. Note that the Nazis used a clockwise swastika- a lot of modern skinheads get it wrong. Their personnel aren't quite up to their 1940's standards, LOL. (Thank goodness!)

I found a really neat old Good Luck token with my detector, in an old park here in town. Looked just like the one in the obverse picture below- came out of the ground pristine and nearly Uncirculated; a very dark, glossy brown! Note the counterclockwise swastika on the crystal ball. I suspect the token is from the 1920's, give or take a decade. One or two people have told me it is Masonic. They're fairly common.



This borrowed reverse picture (from somebody else's detector site!) shows what the reverse on my piece looks like. It has a bunch of symbols, including another swastika, and an inscription that reads "The All-Seeing Eye Will Protect You From Evil", or something like that. Note that it has another swastika, this time a clockwise one, on the reverse, at bottom left.



As a Baha'i, I have noticed swastikas adorning the columns of the North American Baha'i temple, outside Chicaco, in Wilmette, IL. There are a number of religious symbols used in the ornamentation, as Baha'is believe all the world's religions are links in the same chain. (You'll notice the cross and the Star of David right above a counterclockwise swastika.) The Baha'i symbol is a nine-pointed star, as nine, the highest digit you can use, is the numerological equivalent of perfection, or something like that. All the Baha'i temples (there is one on every continent) use the nine-sided motif, with nine doors and nine gardens surrounding the temple, symbolizing that people from all places are welcome to worship there.



The American Baha'i temple may be the oldest surviving one, I believe. I think there was an earlier one in Russia but it was desecrated and torn down. The cornerstone of the Wilmette temple was laid in 1912, and I think it was completed in 1953.



(Off the subject of swastikas and as an aside about Bahai't temples, the newest one in India is shaped like a massive lotus flower- and I hear it is truly massive! It has won many architectural awards and from what I hear, has become quite a tourist site. I would love to see it. Maybe Nanda has? It's in New Delhi.)

lordmarcovan

PS- wasn't the swastika symbol Zoroastrian, not Buddhist? Maybe it was both.

sumnom

I have seen swastikas go both ways. You can't tell a Nazi swastika from the benign form.

Isn't the word swastika from the Sanskrit "svastika"?