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The swastika is a cross with its arms bent 90° to either right or left. It is usually oriented horizontally or at a 45° angle. Geometrically, the swastika might be regarded as an irregular icosagon, a 20-sided polygon. Its Indian form typically features a dot in each quadrant. The swastika has been an important device in Hindu, Buddhist, Japanese, Navajo, Norse, and many other cultures. The symbol was adopted by the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s. Due to the Nazi Party's actions in World War II, the swastika has come to be seen as signifying Nazism in the Western world.The word is from the SanskritSanskrit (Skt. Sasktam; in Devangari script) is among the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and is not only the premier classical language, but also an official language of India. It enjoys much the same position in Indian cul svastika, meaning any lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote good luck. It is composed of su- (cognate with GreekThe word Greek has a number of meanings relating to Greece, including: Architecture of Ancient Greece Art in Ancient Greece Greek alphabet Greek colonies Cuisine of Greece Ethnic Greek Greco-Turkish relations Greece Hellenes History of Greece History of M ευ-), meaning "good, well" and asti a verbal abstract to the root as "to be"; svasti thus means "well-being". The suffix -ka forms a diminutive, and svastika might thus be translated literally as "little thing associated with well-being", corresponding roughly to "lucky charm".
1 Meanings of swastikas
The swastika appears in artMona Lisa Although today the word art usually refers to the visual arts, the concept of what art is has continuously changed over centuries. Perhaps the most concise definition is its broadest—art refers to all creative human endeavors, excluding actions and design throughout humanHuman beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. Biologically, they are classified as Homo sapiens ( Latin for knowing man , a primate species of mammal with a highly developed brain. In spiritua historyHistory is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in "geologic history of the Earth". When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. The term histor, symbolisingA symbol or (in many senses) token is a representation of something — an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. Nature of symbols A symbol can be a material object whose shape or origin is related, by nature or convention, to the thing it represents: for in many different things; such as luckThis article is about good and bad fortune. There is also: Luck, Volhynia, a town in Ukraine, and Luck, Wisconsin, a village in the USA. Luck may be analysed from three viewpoints rational, social, and spiritual. Rational viewpoint As related to the occur, SuryaIn Hinduism, Surya is the chief solar deity, son of Dyaush or Indra. He has hair and arms of gold. His chariot is pulled by either four or seven horses. Tvashtri is his son, as are the twins Yama and Yami and the Asvins (by Saranya). Another name also use (the sun), Brahma, or the Hindu concept of samsara.
The swastika is used primarily as a symbol by Hindus — it was first mentioned in the Vedas, the holy texts of Hinduism — but transferred to followers of other Indic religions like Buddhists and Jains.
A possibly spurious modern tradition has it that only a right-facing or counterclockwise swastika (as depicted above) is a good luck symbol, whereas a left-facing or clockwise swastika is a bad omen, labelled a sauwastika. There is little evidence of this distinction in Hindu history from which it is derived and, although the "standard" form is the right-facing swastika, Hindus all over India and Nepal still use the symbol in both orientations for the sake of balance. Buddhists almost always use the left-facing swastika.
In the early twentieth century the National Socialist German Workers Party adopted the swastika as its emblem and since World War II, most Westerners see it as solely a fascist symbol, leading to incorrect assumptions about its pre-Nazi use.
