Talk:Swastika

photo in 1922. airplane with Swastika

probable PD-old [1]. Halfcookie (talk) 21:04, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

'Activist groups'?

In the early 20th century section, the sentence:

"The swastika remains a core symbol of Neo-Nazi groups, and is used regularly by activist groups."

I'm not sure what activist groups are referred to here in a clause that comes directly after one about Neo-Nazis. I'll delete the second part of the sentence unless anyone can advise. Born to Donne (talk) 08:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I've made this change. Born to Donne (talk) 14:01, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Sutton Hoo swastikas/Cambridge Museum?

I'm a bit confused by this line: "The pagan Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology." First, what items from Sutton Hoo contained swastikas? Second, weren't the objects all deposited in the British Museum? The snipped view on Google Books of the cited source (Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, page 83) shows that "Cambridge Museum" and "swastikas" both appear on page 83, but it doesn't appear that "Sutton Hoo" does. Could someone who knows more, or has the source handy, clear this up? Thanks! Usernameunique (talk) 09:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Having just looked into this, the line was originally put in by an IP address in January 2005 (link), and stated: "The pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Woo, England, contains gold cups and shields bearing swastikas." (Sutton Hoo was, indeed, misspelled as "Sutton Woo.") 3 years and a day later, @Bloodofox: changed this line to the current one: "The pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology." The edit summary said "Checked into it, information is valid. See talk. Can place a lot more examples here including bracteates, gold-embossed on cloth, a stool, runestones, etc. but needed?" The current citation was added sometime later, also by @Bloodofox:.

From what I can tell of the talk page, most of the discussion was over what objects that Cambridge Museum has in its collection, not what objects are attributed to Sutton Hoo. That said, there is a picture (sans discussion) of a hanging bowl from Sutton Hoo, and the British Museum's website (where it is housed---i.e., not at the Cambridge Museum) describes it as having a "zoomorphic swastika design."

Thus, it looks like the Sutton Hoo burial did have at least one object with something resembling a swastika, although it is far from the "gold cups and shields bearing swastikas" that was originally claimed, and it is certainly not at the Cambridge Museum. I'm unaware of any gold cups from Sutton Hoo, and don't think the shield (let alone shields) has anything even remotely resembling a swastika. (Although technically it looks like there was also a shield in Mound 17, not that there's anything suggesting it has anything resembling a swastika.) Nor do these items seem to have been "numerous," nor to have included items like "gold-embossed on cloth," nor to have been ever housed in the Cambridge Museum. It seems as if a line was incorrectly added to this article a decade ago, and then supplemented with information about objects housed at the Cambridge Museum which had nothing to do with Sutton Hoo.--Usernameunique (talk) 09:54, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

merge

Same concept, variant spelling. Editor2020 (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Origins and meaning of the swastika symbol

I want to spotlight the unfair editing of this article by an Indian user, "Tiger7253". He persistently deletes and changes content, especially to convey the idea that the swastika is an originally and exclusively "Indian" symbolism, while it is found across all Indo-European-influenced cultures spanning Eurasia and the article is full of sources supporting this evidence.--95.232.135.117 (talk) 14:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

RegentsPark (talk · contribs) and Kautilya3 (talk · contribs), I would like to bring to light the several violations of wiki etiquette that 95.232.135.117 (talk · contribs) has committed.

First of all, I reverted a rather profound - and dubious - edit to the lead paragraph that did not include any references or sources. The edit claimed that the Swastika is used in contemporary European pagan customs, such as 'Slavic Rodnovery'. While the Swastika does have an Indo-European link, as adequately explained by the article, there does not seem to be anything in the article to suggest its usage in contemporary European traditions. If anything, all sources point to historical, not modern, usage - and even that is rather limited because most of the text dedicated towards European usage focuses on its 19th/20th century adoption by various organisations. The lead paragraph summarises the most prominent contemporary religions and cultures that do use the Swastika today - like Hinduism and Buddhism. Everything else is included in the rest of the article. I am unsure as to why this user wants to push it into the lead when it is not as noteworthy as the examples that are now included.

Secondly, this user is engaging in outright ad hominem targeting, directed towards me as opposed to the content of this article, and more of this can be seen in the edit history of Swastika. This user went as far as to assume that I am Indian (when this has nothing to do with my edits) and then assumed that my edits are biased and agenda-driven. The edit history of this user seems to suggest some sort of sock puppetry at play here. As I am not an admin and do not have the required privileges to deal with this sort of thing, I have tagged the admins that I do know. Thanks. Tiger7253 (talk) 10:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Note: I've temporarily semi-protected the page. Please use the talk page to discuss suggested changes. --regentspark (comment) 13:55, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The swastika did not originate in the Indian subcontinent, despite what some Indian nationalists, and the various ignorants who continue to impair the quality of this article, claim. It is a symbol brought thwartwise cultures by the Indo-Europeans (the earliest attested I.E. culture is Yamna), who were also the initiators of early Vedic culture. The two sources upon which the sentence which Tiger7253 continues to revert is built do not say that the symbol originated in the Indian subcontinent (d'Alviella 1894). The swastika is derivatively a symbol in contemporary Asian religions. The page is disseminated with iconographic archeological evidence that the swastika is used across various I.E. cultures and is not exclusively Indian.

Quote from d'Alviella 1894 (p. 73): "A first observation, made long ago, is that the gammadion is almost the exclusive property of the Aryan race. It is found, in fact, among all the peoples of the Indo-European branch, whilst it is completely absent among the Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Assyrians, and even the Phœnicians, although these latter were not very scrupulous in borrowing the ornaments and symbols of their neighbours. As for the Tibetans, the Chinese, and the Japanese, amongst whom it is neither less frequent nor less venerated, it is not difficult to prove that it must have come to them, with Buddhism, from India.

There was only a step from this to the conclusion that the gammadion is a survival of the symbolism created, or adopted, by the common ancestors of the Aryans, and this step has been easily got over. Had we not the precedents of philology, which cannot come upon the same radical in the principal dialects of the Indo-European nations without tracing its existence to the period when these people spoke the same language? We did not even stop there. Desirous of investing the gammadion with an importance proportioned to the high destiny imputed to it, one has endeavoured to make it the symbol of the supreme God whom the Aryans are said to have adored before their dispersion. Thus we have seen Mr. Greg exhibit the gammadion as the emblem of the god of the sky, or air, who, in the course of the Indo-European migrations, was converted into Indra, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, and so forth. [...]."

Regarding the meaning of the swastika, he further reiterates that (p. 74): " it might well have been, with the primitive Aryans, "the emblem of the divinity who comprehended all the gods, or, again, of the omnipotent God of the universe".--82.54.75.3 (talk) 19:52, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

More from p. 82 of the same book: "As for India, everything, so far, tends to show that the swastika was introduced into that country from Greece, the Caucasus, or Asia Minor, by ways which we do not yet know." Here a diagram showing the chronology of diffusion of the swastika. India is the eighth step!--82.54.75.3 (talk) 20:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)