Time for Buddhists to say goodbye to hijacked symbol
Re: “Education is our best defence against revival of Nazism”, Have Your Say, January 31.
His Excellency the Russian ambassador is correct in noting that the swastika symbol in Buddhism has its own dimension. As an earlier letter in this column pointed out, the “arms” of the Nazi swastika face to the right, whereas the “arms” of the Hindu-Buddhist sauvastika face to the left.
There’s a big difference. An old book, WE Soothill and Lewis Hodous’s “A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms”, compiled in the 1930s and reprinted in the 1960s by Fo Kuang Publisher on Taiwan, notes that the left-facing sauvastika is a symbol of great antiquity, originally denoting a curl of hair on the breast of Vishnu. Even now it appears on the chest of many Chinese Buddha images. It’s a variant of the Chinese character wan, meaning ten thousand and used to signify the “ten thousand things”, ie, the entire phenomenal universe or, by association, infinity. Originally it was an auspicious symbol of everything that is good and holy.
Not anymore. However ancient and sacred the sauvastika may be, it is easily confused with the swastika, the right-facing symbol that was hijacked by the Nazis and subsequently came to symbolise Hitler’s regime and all its evils. Because modern usage has mistakenly caused it to be identified almost exclusively with Nazism, Hindus and Buddhists would be well advised to renounce it as a religious symbol.
If they need a symbol, each religion has a better one. Hinduism has the Omkar, the Devanagari letter “Om”, which represents the Absolute and is widely recognised as the definitive symbol of Hinduism. Buddhism has the dhammacakka/dharmachakra, the Buddhist Wheel of the Law, universally recognised as the pre-eminent symbol of Buddhism. The Buddha himself is reported to have said, “Monks, he who sees the dhamma sees me.” But I suspect that he would have smiled at the all-
too-human need to have a symbol of either.
Because the reputation of the sauvastika/swastika has been irreparably besmirched by its hijacking by the Nazis and its association with their subsequent crimes, it’s time for both Hindus and Buddhists to bid it adieu and, if they must have symbols, to turn to more appropriate ones.
Ye Olde Theologian
