Walgreens Removes Hanukkah Wrapping Paper Covered with Swastikas

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14. swastika in history

Swastika
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Swastika, a symbol of auspiciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
In the Western world, the swastika since the 1930s has mostly been associated with the flag of Nazi Germany and the Nazi Party.

The swastika (also known as the gammadion cross or cross cramponnée) is a symbol that generally takes the form of an equilateral cross, with its four legs bent at 90 degrees (as a Chinese character: 卐 or 卍 .[1][2] It is considered to be a very sacred and auspicious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[3]

It appears as a decorative element in various cultures since at least the Neolithic, and is mostly known as a symbol in Indian religions, denoting "auspiciousness", adopted as such in pre-WWI-Europe and later, and most notably, by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Because of its use in Nazism, in many Western countries the swastika is stigmatized,[4] while it remains commonly used as a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism.[3]

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The word swastika derives from the Sanskrit svastika "lucky or auspicious object". The older term gammadion cross derives mainly from its appearance, which is identical to four Greek gamma letters affixed to each other.

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