sauvastika

Updated: May 1, 2025

The names Fylfot and Svastika are very generally applied to both these symbols. The term Svastika, an Indian one, is however applied by the inhabitants of Hindostan to one only; they calling the other Sauvastika. And it is curious to note that the meanings attached to these names, though, like the symbols allied in nature, are, also like them, the reverse or negative or complement of each other.

John Denham Parsons - The Non-Christian Cross: An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion

Here then, I think, we have very clear indications that the Svastika, with the hands pointing in the right direction, was originally a symbol of the Sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal sun, the Sauvastika, and therefore a natural symbol of light, life, health, and wealth. That in ancient mythology the sun was frequently represented as a wheel is well known.

John Denham Parsons - The Non-Christian Cross: An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion

Schliemann remarks that we find the Svastika or Sauvastika cross "In Ezekiel ix. 4, 6, where in the form of the old Hebrew letter Tau it is written as the sign of life on the forehead, like the corresponding Indian symbol.

John Denham Parsons - The Non-Christian Cross: An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion