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The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles either right-handed or left-handed. It is traditionally oriented so that a main line is [horizontal], though it is occasionally rotated at [forty-five] degrees, and the Hindu version is often decorated with a dot in each quadrant. The earliest appearance of this symbol dates back to around the 5th millennium BCE. It came to be a universal symbol of good fortune, harmony, and protection. It is a cross-cultural symbol that was used by ancient American Indians, Hindus, Buddhists, Vikings, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Mayans, Aztecs, and Persians. For most cultures a right-handed swastika (with the top arm pointing right and the bottom arm pointing left) represented life and good luck, while a left-handed swastika (with the top arm pointing left and the bottom arm pointing right) represented death, evil, and bad luck. [Counterclockwise] movements are thought to send energy out (white, bright, emanating) while clockwise movements are thought to pull energy in (black, dark, devouring). Buddhists outside of India started [using] left-handed swastikas because the right-handed swastika was used by the Nazis. Early Christians used it as a symbol of the cross, possibly as the cross in a disguised form. In Asia it is still used to designate a church on maps and the Kanji for 10,000 is derived from the swastika, which was [associated] with 10,000 gods. Many Hindus and Buddhists still consider it holy. The name is derived from the Sanskrit svastika, coming from su- meaning good or well, asti meaning being, and ka meaning little. Thus swastika means [little thing] [associated] with well being. A German archealogist named Heinrich Schliemann had proposed that the swastika was a specifically Indo-European symbol and this theory had become popular for a while leading to much use of it in the West between 1880-1920. It was [because of this] that the Nazis took up the symbol [in the early] twentieth century, seeing it as a symbol of the Aryan race. Of course, not only is the symbol not a specifically Indo-European symbol, but the Aryan race is a myth (the term Aryan refers to people that were linked linguistically, but who were genetically very diverse). It is lamentable that such a beautiful and powerful symbol has been perhaps irrevocably tarnished and entangled with racism and the holaucast.

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