The Swastika Part 3

D'Alviella[47] expresses his doubts concerning the theory advanced by Greg[48] to the effect that the Swastika is to be interpreted as a symbol of the air or of the G.o.d who dwells in the air, operating sometimes to produce light, other times rain, then water, and so on, as is represented by the G.o.d Indra among the Hindus, Thor among the Germans and Scandinavians, Perkun among the Slavs, Zeus among the Pelasgi and Greeks, Jupiter Tonans, and Pluvius among the Latins. He disputes the theory that the a.s.sociation of the Swastika sign with various others on the same object proves its relations.h.i.+p with that object or sign. That it appears on vases or similar objects a.s.sociated with what is evidently a solar disk is no evidence to him that the Swastika belongs to the sun, or when a.s.sociated with the zigzags of lightning that it represents the G.o.d of lightning, nor the same with the G.o.d of heaven. The fact of its appearing either above or below any one of these is, in his opinion, of no importance and has no signification, either general or special.

D'Alviella says[49] that the only example known to him of a Swastika upon a monument consecrated to Zeus or Jupiter is on a Celto-Roman altar, erected, according to all appearances, by the Daci during the time they were garrisoned at Ambloganna, in Britain. The altar bears the letters I.

O. M., which have been thought to stand for Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Swastika thereon is flanked by two disks or rouelles, with four rays, a sign which M. Gaidoz believes to have been a representative of the sun among the Gaulois.[50]

Dr. Brinton[51] considers the Swastika as being related to the cross and not to the circle, and a.s.serts that the Ta Ki or Triskeles, the Swastika and the Cross, were originally of the same signification, or at least closely allied in meaning.

Waring,[52] after citing his authorities, sums up his opinion thus:

We have given remarks of the various writers on this symbol, and it will be seen that, though they are more or less vague, uncertain, and confused in their description of it, still, with one exception, they all agree that it is a mystic symbol, peculiar to some deity or other, bearing a special signification, and generally believed to have some connection with one of the elements--water.

Burton says:[53]

The Svastika is apparently the simplest form of the Guilloche [scroll pattern or spiral]. According to Wilkinson (11, Chap. IX), the most complicated form of the Guilloche covered an Egyptian ceiling upward of a thousand years older than the objects found at Nineveh. The Svastika spread far and wide, everywhere a.s.suming some fresh mythological and mysterious significance. In the north of Europe it became the Fylfot or Crutched cross.

Count Goblet d'Alviella is of the opinion (p. 57) that the Swastika was "above all an amulet, talisman, or phylactere," while (p. 56) "it is incontestable that a great number of the Swastikas were simply motifs of ornamentation, of coin marks, and marks of fabrics," but he agrees (p. 57) that there is no symbol that has given rise to so many interpretations, not even the _tricula_ of the Buddhists, and "this is a great deal to say." Ludwig Muller believes the Swastika to have been used as an ornament and as a charm and amulet, as well as a sacred symbol.

Dr. H. Colley March, in his learned paper on the "Fylfot and the Futh.o.r.e Tir,"[54] thinks the Swastika had no relation to fire or fire making or the fire G.o.d. His theory is that it symbolized axial motion and not merely gyration; that it represented the celestial pole, the axis of the heavens around which revolve the stars of the firmament. This appearance of rotation is most impressive in the constellation of the Great Bear. About four thousand years ago the apparent pivot of rotation was at [Greek: a]

_Draconis_, much nearer the Great Bear than now, and at that time the rapid circular sweep must have been far more striking than at present. In addition to the name Ursa Major the Latins called this constellation _Septentriones_, "the seven plowing oxen," that dragged the stars around the pole, and the Greeks called it [Greek: elike], from its vast spiral movement.[55] In the opinion of Dr. March all these are represented or symbolized by the Swastika.

Prof. W. H. Goodyear, of New York, has lately (1891) published an elaborate quarto work ent.i.tled "The Grammar of the Lotus: A New History of Cla.s.sic Ornament as a Development of Sun Wors.h.i.+p."[56] It comprises 408 pages, with 76 plates, and nearly a thousand figures. His theory develops the sun symbol from the lotus by a series of ingenious and complicated evolutions pa.s.sing through the Ionic style of architecture, the volutes and spirals forming meanders or Greek frets, and from this to the Swastika. The result is attained by the following line of argument and ill.u.s.trations:

The lotus was a "fetish of immemorial antiquity and has been wors.h.i.+ped in many countries from j.a.pan to the Straits of Gibraltar;" it was a symbol of "fecundity," "life," "immortality," and of "resurrection," and has a mortuary significance and use. But its elementary and most important signification was as a solar symbol.[57]

He describes the Egyptian lotus and traces it through an innumerable number of specimens and with great variety of form. He mentions many of the sacred animals of Egypt and seeks to maintain their relations.h.i.+p by or through the lotus, not only with each other but with solar circles and the sun wors.h.i.+p.[58] Direct a.s.sociation of the solar disk and lotus are, according to him, common on the monuments and on Phenician and a.s.syrian seals; while the lotus and the sacred animals, as in cases cited of the goose representing Seb (solar G.o.d, and father of Osiris), also Osiris himself and Horus, the hawk and lotus, bull and lotus, the asp and lotus, the lion and lotus, the sphinx and lotus, the gryphon and lotus, the serpent and lotus, the ram and lotus--all of which animals, and with them the lotus, have, in his opinion, some related signification to the sun or some of his deities.[59] He is of the opinion that the lotus motif was the foundation of the Egyptian style of architecture, and that it appeared at an early date, say, the fourteenth century B. C. By intercommunication with the Greeks it formed the foundation of the Greek Ionic capital, which, he says,[60] "offers no dated example of the earlier time than the sixth century B. C." He supports this contention by authority, argument, and ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From figures in Goodyear's "Grammar of the Lotus," p. 27.

Fig. 15. TYPICAL LOTUS ON CYPRIAN VASES.

Fig. 16. TYPICAL LOTUS ON RHODIAN VASES.

Fig. 17. TYPICAL LOTUS ON MELIAN VASES.]

He shows[61] the transfer of the lotus motif to Greece, and its use as an ornament on the painted vases and on those from Cyprus, Rhodes, and Melos (figs. 15, 16, 17).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 18. DETAIL OF CYPRIAN VASE SHOWING LOTUSES WITH CURLING SEPALS. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 47, fig. 1.]

Chantre[62] notes the presence of spirals similar to those of fig. 17, in the terramares of northern Italy and up and down the Danube, and his fig.

186 (fig. 17) he says represents the decorating motif, the most frequent in all that part of prehistoric Europe. He cites "Notes sur les torques ou ornaments spirals."[63]

That the lotus had a foundation deep and wide in Egyptian mythology is not to be denied; that it was allied to and a.s.sociated on the monuments and other objects with many sacred and mythologic characters in Egypt and afterwards in Greece is accepted. How far it extends in the direction contended for by Professor Goodyear, is no part of this investigation. It appears well established that in both countries it became highly conventionalized, and it is quite sufficient for the purpose of this argument that it became thus a.s.sociated with the Swastika. Figs. 18 and 19 represent details of Cyprian vases and amphora belonging to the Cesnola collection in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing the lotus with curling sepals among which are interspersed Swastikas of different forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 19. DETAIL OF CYPRIAN AMPHORA IN METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK CITY. Lotus with curling sepals and different Swastikas.

Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 47, figs. 2, 3.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 20. THEORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPIRAL SCROLL FROM LOTUS. One Volute. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," fig. 21.]

According to Professor Goodyear,[64] these bent sepals of the lotus were exaggerated and finally became spirals,[65] which, being projected at a tangent, made volutes, and, continuing one after the other, as shown in fig. 20, formed bands of ornament; or,[66] being connected to right and left, spread the ornament over an extended surface as in fig. 21. One of his paths of evolution closed these volutes and dropped the connecting tangent, when they formed the concentric rings of which we see so much.

Several forms of Egyptian scarabaei, showing the evolution of concentric rings, are shown in figs. 22, 23, and 24.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21. THEORY OF LOTUS RUDIMENTS IN SPIRAL. Tomb 33, Abd-el Kourneh, Thebes. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," p. 96.]

By another path of the evolution of his theory, one has only to square the spiral volutes, and the result is the Greek fret shown in fig. 25.[67] The Greek fret has only to be doubled, when it produces the Swastika shown in fig. 26.[68] Thus we have, according to him, the origin of the Swastika, as shown in figs. 27 and 28.[69]

Professor Goodyear is authority for the statement that the earliest dated instances of the isolated scroll is in the fifth dynasty of Egypt, and of the lotus and spiral is in the eleventh dynasty. The spiral of fig. 19 (above) belongs to the twelfth dynasty.[70]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN SCARABaeI SHOWING EVOLUTION OF CONCENTRIC RINGS.

Fig. 22. CONCENTRIC RINGS CONNECTED BY TANGENTS. From a figure in Petrie's "History of Scarabs."

Fig. 23. CONCENTRIC RINGS WITH DISCONNECTED TANGENTS. Barringer collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 8, fig. 93.

Fig. 24. CONCENTRIC RINGS WITHOUT CONNECTION. Farman collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 8, fig. 95.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 25. SPECIAL EGYPTIAN MEANDER. An ill.u.s.tration of the theory of derivation from the spiral. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus,"

pl. 10, fig. 9.]

Professor Goodyear devotes an entire chapter to the Swastika. On pages 352, 353 he says:

There is no proposition in archaeology which can be so easily demonstrated as the a.s.sertion that the Swastika was originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, provided Greek geometric vases are called in evidence. The connection between the meander and the Swastika has been long since suggested by Prof. A. S. Murray.[71]

Hindu specialists have suggested that the Swastika produced the meander. Birdwood[72] says: "I believe the Swastika to be the origin of the key pattern ornament of Greek and Chinese decorative art."

Zmigrodzki, in a recent publication,[73] has not only reproposed this derivation of the meander, but has even connected the Mycenae spirals with this supposed development, and has proposed to change the name of the spiral ornament accordingly. * * * The equivalence of the Swastika with the meander pattern is suggested, in the first instance, by its appearance in the shape of the meander on the Rhodian (pl. 28, fig.

7), Melian (pl. 60, fig. 8), archaeic Greek (pl. 60, fig. 9, and pl.

61, fig. 12), and Greek geometric vases (pl. 56). The appearance, in shape of the meander may be verified in the British Museum on one geometric vase of the oldest type, and it also occurs in the Louvre.

On page 354, Goodyear says:

The solar significance of the Swastika is proven by the Hindu coins of the Jains. Its generative significance is proven by a leaden statuette from Troy. It is an equivalent of the lotus (pl. 47, figs. 1, 2, 3), of the solar diagram (pl. 57, fig. 12, and pl. 60, fig. 8), of the rosette (pl. 20, fig. 8), of concentric rings (pl. 47, fig. 11), of the spiral scroll (pl. 34, fig. 8, and pl. 39, fig. 2), of the geometric boss (pl. 48, fig. 12), of the triangle (pl. 46, fig. 5), and of the anthemion (pl. 28, fig. 7, and pl. 30, fig. 4). It appears with the solar deer (pl. 60, figs. 1 and 2), with the solar antelope (pl. 37, fig. 9), with the symbolic fish (pl. 42, fig. 1), with the ibex (pl. 37, fig. 4), with the solar sphinx (pl. 34, fig. 8), with the solar lion (pl. 30, fig. 4), the solar ram (pl. 28, fig. 7), and the solar horse (pl. 61, figs. 1, 4, 5, and 12). Its most emphatic and constant a.s.sociation is with the solar bird (pl. 60, fig. 15; fig.

173).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 26. DETAIL OF GREEK VASE. Meander and Swastika.

Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," fig. 171.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27. DETAIL OF GREEK GEOMETRIC VASE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Swastika, right, with solar geese. Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 353, fig. 173.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28. GREEK GEOMETRIC VASE. Swastika with solar geese.

Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 353, fig. 172.]

Count Goblet d'Alviella, following Ludwig Muller, Percy Gardner, S. Beal, Edward Thomas, Max Muller, H. Gaidoz, and other authors, accepts their theory that the Swastika was a symbolic representation of the sun or of a sun G.o.d, and argues it fully.[74] He starts with the proposition that most of the nations of the earth have represented the sun by a circle, although some of them, notably the a.s.syrians, Hindus, Greeks, and Celts, have represented it by signs more or less cruciform. Examining his fig. 2, wherein signs of the various people are set forth, it is to be remarked that there is no similarity or apparent relations.h.i.+p between the six symbols given, either with themselves or with the sun. Only one of them, that of a.s.syria, pretends to be a circle; and it may or may not stand for the sun. It has no exterior rays. All the rest are crosses of different kinds. Each of the six symbols is represented as being from a single nation of people. They are prehistoric or of high antiquity, and most of them appear to have no other evidence of their representation of the sun than is contained in the sign itself, so that the first objection is to the premises, to wit, that while his symbols may have sometimes represented the sun, it is far from certain that they are used constantly or steadily as such. An objection is made to the theory or hypothesis presented by Count d'Alviella[75] that it is not the cross part of the Swastika which represents the sun, but its bent arms, which show the revolving motion, by which he says is evolved the tetraskelion or what in this paper is named the "Ogee Swastika." The author is more in accord with Dr. Brinton and others that the Swastika is derived from the cross and not from the wheel, that the bent arms do not represent rotary or gyratory motion, and that it had no a.s.sociation with, or relation to, the circle.

This, if true, relieves the Swastika from all relation with the circle as a symbol of the sun. Besides, it is not believed that the symbol of the sun is one which required rotary or gyratory motion or was represented by it, but, as will be explained, in speaking of the a.s.syrian sun-G.o.d Shamash (p. 789), it is rather by a circle with pointed rays extending outward.

D'Alviella[76] presents several figures in support of his contention. The first (_a_) is on a fibula from Etruria (fig. 190 of this paper). His explanation is that the small circle of rays, bent at right angles, on the broad s.h.i.+eld of the pin, represents graphically the rotary movement of the sun, and that the bent arms in the Swastikas on the same object are taken from them. It seems curious that so momentous a subject as the existence of a symbol of a great G.o.d, the G.o.d of light, heat, and thus of life, should be made to depend upon an object of so small importance. This specimen (fig. 190) is a fibula or pin, one of the commonest objects of Etruscan, Greek, or Roman dress. The decorations invoked are on the broad end, which has been flattened to protect the point of the pin, where appears a semicircle of so-called rays, the two Swastikas and two possible crosses. There is nothing about this pin, nor indeed any of the other objects, to indicate any holy or sacred character, nor that any of them were used in any ceremony having relation to the sun, to any G.o.d, or to anything holy or sacred. His fig. _b_ is fig. 88 in this paper. It shows a quadrant of the sphere found by Schliemann at Hissarlik. There is a slightly indefinite circle with rays from the outside, which are bent and crooked in many directions. The sphere is of terra cotta; the marks that have been made on it are rough and ill formed. They were made by incision while the clay was soft and were done in the rudest manner. There are dozens more marks upon the same sphere, none of which seem to have received any consideration in this regard. There is a Swastika upon the sphere, and it is the only mark or sign upon the entire object that seems to have been made with care or precision. His third figure (_c_) is taken from a reliquaire of the thirteenth century A. D. It has a greater resemblance to the acanthus plant than it has to any solar disk imaginable. The other two figures (_d_ and _e_) are tetraskelions or ogee Swastikas from ancient coins.

D'Alviella's next argument[77] is that the triskelion, formed by the same process as the tetraskelion, is an "incontestable" representation of solar movement. No evidence is submitted in support of this a.s.sertion, and the investigator of the present day is required, as in prehistoric objects, to depend entirely upon the object itself. The bent arms contain no innate evidence (even though they should be held to represent rotary or gyratory motion) representing the sun or sun G.o.ds. It is respectfully suggested that in times of antiquity, as in modern times, the sun is not represented as having a rotary motion, but is rather represented by a circle with diminis.h.i.+ng rays projecting from the center or exterior. It seems unjustifiable, almost ridiculous, to transform the three flexed human legs, first appearing on the coins of Lycia, into a sun symbol, to make it the reliable evidence of sun wors.h.i.+p, and give it a holy or sacred character as representing a G.o.d. It is surely pus.h.i.+ng the argument too far to say that this is an "incontestable" representation of the solar movement. The ill.u.s.trations by d'Alviella on his page 71 are practically the same as figs. 224 to 226 of this paper.

Count d'Alviella's further argument[78] is that symbols of the sun G.o.d being frequently a.s.sociated, alternated with, and sometimes replaced by, the Swastika, proves it to have been a sun symbol. But this is doubted, and evidence to sustain the proposition is wanting. Undoubtedly the Swastika was a symbol, was intentional, had a meaning and a degree of importance, and, while it may have been intended to represent the sun and have a higher and holier character, yet these mere a.s.sociations are not evidence of the fact.

D'Alviella's plate 2, page 80, while divided into sections _a_ and _b_, is filled only with ill.u.s.trations of Swastika a.s.sociated with circles, dots, etc., introduced for the purpose of showing the a.s.sociation of the Swastika therewith, and that the permutation and replacing of these signs by the Swastika is evidence that the Swastika represented the sun. Most of the same ill.u.s.trations are presented in this paper, and it is respectfully submitted that the evidence does not bear out his conclusion. If it be established that these other symbols are representatives of the sun, how does that prove that the Swastika was itself a representative of the sun or the sun G.o.d? D'Alviella himself argues[79] against the proposition of equivalence of meaning because of a.s.sociation when applied to the _Crux ansata_, the circle, the crescent, the triskelion, the lightning sign, and other symbolic figures. He denies that because the Swastika is found on objects a.s.sociated with these signs therefore they became interchangeable in meaning, or that the Swastika stood for any of them. The Count[79] says that more likely the engraver added the Swastika to these in the character of a talisman or phylactery. On page 56 he argues in the same line, that because it is found on an object of sacred character does not necessarily give it the signification of a sacred or holy symbol. He regards the Swastika as a symbol of good fortune, and sees no reason why it may not be employed as an invocation to a G.o.d of any name or kind on the principle, "Good Lord, good devil," quoting the Neapolitan proverb, that it will do no harm, and possibly may do good.