I find it interesting that the swastika is a symbol with both Pre-Christian Euro

Question:Why do you think that is so?
Have Western Europe and India had contact with each other since the bronze age? Do you think there are any similarities between Hinduism and Nordic mythology?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Why do you think that is so?
Have Western Europe and India had contact with each other since the bronze age? Do you think there are any similarities between Hinduism and Nordic mythology?

The swastika shape, or the crooked cross, used to be a Navajo symbol for healing too. After WWII, the Navajos decided not to continue using the symbol because of the hate it carried. It was also found as a symbol in Panama, in Rome and in Roman-era Egypt. In addition, there are instances of swastikas in Chinese history that may be linked with trade with Hindu regions of Tibet and India.

Coptic Christians in Egypt had this symbol in some of their temples, and when I visited a Coptic Church in the Egyptian desert, they had a series of symbols on an ancient doorway, one of which was a swatika. The monk there explained that they believed it was a door of prophesy that predicted the rise of the Nazis.

So the question is, how did the symbol proliferate in all these cultures? Well, you can take a few stances on this.

You could say that the symbol itself is something that people instinctively recognize and infuse with meaning. This is a difficult stance because it insinuates certain things about the human mind that are not proven.

You could also say that the symbol itself was one of the first symbols created by humans, and so it has roots in all culture... in the proto-culture that developed when humanity was young. This is also hard to prove because such symbols might have been drawn in sand or tattooed, and so there's no remains to prove it ever existed.

You could say that trade relationships between these cultures carried the symbol to new destinations. The Nords, Romans and Egyptians had extensive trade routes in Europe and the Mediterranean which also connected to the silk road that led to India and China. That's a satisfying answer for most of it, but what about the symbol in America, right?

Well, you could say that it's also chance. Many of the cultures that developed this symbol were also extensive weavers. This pattern is said to be easily designed when weaving because the 90 degree angles work well with a loom. You could also say that people have been drawing for thousands upon thousands of years, and many simple symbols are shared between many cultures and the only reason we notice the swastika is due to its Nazi baggage.

In the end, there are many possible explanations for the presence of this pattern in cultures around the world. It's hard to prove it any which way. Really the only conclusion you can make is that it's a simple symbol that is not impossible to create independently in the Americas, but it may have been introduced with trade along the silk road between China and Scandinavia and places in between.

I believe it was also used by Navajo Indians

Here is a explanation as to why. See source.
It was scratched on cave walls in France, seven thousand years ago.
To some Native Americans it was the symbol of the sun, the four directions and the four seasons.

Many European languages are categorized today, linguistically, as Indo-Aryan as they have deep roots in Sanskrit, one of the older written languages on the planet. The Swastika itself is very heavy with meaning, I'm not too familiar with it, though 'swasti' in Sanskrit denotes well being or goodness and is the root of the Thai greeting 'sawat dee'.

As the Hindu and pre-Hindu cultures of India influenced the West, and the East, linguistically, not to mention culturally and religiously, they also influenced them symbolically with symbols like the swastika.

Hi Ash,

The swastika symbol is a common one in many cultures. In addition to its distinctive shape, it also lends itself to continuous patterns.

Otherwise, there is nothing intrinsically bad about the swastika cross. The odium is a result solely of its association with Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Indians use the swastika in various forms during religious occasions. It's drawn with red vermilion on coconuts, brass vessels, walls. It dates back to the Aryan times when the Indus Valley civilisation people had many symbols. Now in the state of Gujarat they want to use it instead of the Red Cross.