Mr. Waller, in his work entitled “Monumental Crosses,” describes the Swastika as having been known in India as a sacred symbol many centuries before our Lord, and used as the distinguishing badge of a religious sect calling themselves “Followers of the Mystic Cross.” Subsequently, he says, it was adopted by the followers of Buddha and was still later used by Christians at a very early period, being first introduced on Christian monuments in the sixth century. But Mr. Waring says that in this he is not correct, as it was found in some of the early paintings in the Roman catacombs, particularly on the habit of a Fossor, or gravedigger, given by D’Agincourt.
Pugin, in his “Glossary of Ornament,” under the title “Fylfot,” says that in Tibet the Swastika was used as a representation of God crucified for the human race, citing as his authority F. Augustini Antonii Georgii.[35] He remarks:
From these accounts it would appear that the fylfot is a mystical ornament, not only adopted among Christians from primitive times, but used, as if prophetically, for centuries before the coming of our Lord. To descend to later times, we find it constantly introduced in ecclesiastical vestments, * * * till the end of the fifteenth century, a period marked by great departure from traditional symbolism.
Its use was continued in Tibet into modern times, though its meaning is not given.[36] (See [p. 802].)
The Rev. G. Cox, in his “Aryan Mythology,” says:
We recognize the male and the female symbol in the trident of Poseidon, and in the fylfot or hammer of Thor, which assumes the form of a cross-pattèe in the various legends which turn on the rings of Freya, Holda, Venus, or Aphrodite.
Here again we find the fylfot and cross-pattèe spoken of as the same symbol, and as being emblematic of the reproductive principles, in which view of its meaning Dr. Inman, in his “Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names,” concurs.
Burnouf[37] recounts the myth of Agni (from which comes, through the Latin ignis, the English word igneous), the god of Sacred Fire, as told in the Veda:[38]
The young queen, the mother of Fire, carried the royal infant mysteriously concealed in her bosom. She was a woman of the people, whose common name was “Arani”—that is, the instrument of wood (the Swastika) from which fire was made or brought by rubbing. * * * The origin of the sign [Swastika] is now easy to recognize. It represents the two pieces of wood which compose l’arani, of which the extremities were bent to be retained by the four nails. At the junction of the two pieces of wood was a fossette or cup-like hole, and there they placed a piece of wood upright, in form of a lance (the Pramantha), violent rotation of which, by whipping (after the fashion of top-whipping), produced fire, as did Prometheus, the porteur du feu, in Greece.
And this myth was made, as have been others, probably by the priests and poets of succeeding times, to do duty for different philosophies. The Swastika was made to represent Arani (the female principle); the Pramantha or upright fire stake representing Agni, the fire god (the male); and so the myth served its part to account for the birth of fire. Burnouf hints that the myth grew out of the production of holy fire for the sacred altars by the use of the Pramantha and Swastika, after the manner of savages in all times. Zmigrodzki accepts this myth, and claims all specimens with dots or points—supposed nail holes—as Swastikas.