Fig. 34c.
THE FORMATION OF THE JAIN
SWASTIKA—THIRD STAGE.
Ends turned out, typifying animal, human,
and celestial life, as shown in [fig. 33].
Mr. Gandhi says the Jains make the sign of the Swastika as frequently and deftly as the Roman Catholics make the sign of the cross. It is not confined to the temple nor to the priests or monks. Whenever or wherever a benediction or blessing is given, the Swastika is used. Figs. 34 [a], [b], [c] form a series showing how it is made. A handful of rice, meal, flour, sugar, salt, or any similar substance, is spread over a circular space, say, 3 inches in diameter and one-eighth of an inch deep ([fig. 34a]), then commence at the outside of the circle ([fig. 34b]), on its upper or farther left-hand corner, and draw the finger through the meal just to the left of the center, halfway or more to the opposite or near edge of the circle (1), then again to the right (2), then upward (3), finally to the left where it joins with the first mark (4). The ends are swept outward, the dots and crescent put in above, and the sign is complete ([fig. 34c]).
The sign of the Swastika is reported in great numbers, by hundreds if not by thousands, in the inscriptions on the rock walls of the Buddhist caves in India. It is needless to copy them, but is enough to say that they are the same size as the letters forming the inscription; that they all have four arms and the ends turn at right angles, or nearly so, indifferently to the right or to the left. The following list of inscriptions, containing the Swastikas, is taken from the first book coming to hand—the “Report of Dr. James Burgess on the Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions, Being a Part of the Result of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Seasons’ Operations of the Archæological Survey of Western India, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879:”[120]
| Plate. | Inscription number. | Direction in which ends are bent. | |
| Bhaja | XLIV | 2 | To right. |
| Kuda | XLVI | 26 | Do. |
| Do | XLVI | 27 | To left. |
| Kol | XLVI | 5 | To right. |
| Karle | XLVII | 1 | Do. |
| Do | XLVII | 3 | Do. |
| Junnar | XLIX | 5 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 6 | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 7 | To right. |
| Do | XLIX | 8 | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 9 | To right. |
| Do | XLIX | 10 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 11 (?) | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 12 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 13 (?) | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 13 (?) | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 14 | Do. |
| Do | L | 17 | To right. |
| Do | L | 19 | Do. |
| Nasik | LII | 5 | Do. |
| Do | LV (Nasik 21) | 5 (?) | Do. |
| Do | LV (Nasik 24) | 8 (?) | Do. |
Chantre[121] says:
I remind you that the (East) Indians, Chinese, and Japanese employ the Swastika, not only as a religious emblem but as a simple ornament in painting on pottery and elsewhere, the same as we employ the Greek fret, lozenges, and similar motifs in our ornamentation. Sistres [the staff with jingling bells, held in the hand of Buddha, on whose base is engraved a row of Swastikas, [fig. 29] of present paper] of similar form and style have been found in prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings of the bronze age. Thus the sistres and the Swastika are brought into relation with each other. The sistres possibly relate to an ancient religion, as they did in the Orient; the Swastika may have had a similar distinction.
De Mortillet and others hold the same opinion.[122]