The swastika is said to have arisen from the tapak dara, a plant whose leaf pattern is symbolized by a cross. This “swastika leaf” (known in the West as vinca rosea, or patiens), is chewed by mothers during lactation in Indonesia, as well as by those recovering from illness. It may also come into play following ritual Balinese turtle slaughter. The symbol is drawn with charcoal or lime, so as to prevent it from being infected by negative influences or by evil spirits.

The tapak dara plant is also used in a Balinese ceremony marking the forty-second day of an infant’s life; this is known as tutug kambuhan or macolong, a name cognate with the verb “to steal”. Unless a baby has passed through this rite, s/he is not allowed to be taken inside a shrine. The purpose of the ritual is to prevent the child from coming under the influence of criminal tendencies (such as the urge to steal). Future undesirable behavior will be deflected, and the ceremony is also thought to stimulate positive dharma. During this ceremony, the infant wears an amulet known as the kebeb, symbolizing the tapak dara, and this is presumed to drive off negative or malevolent forces. Earrings will be attached to female babies.

Tapak dara symbolizes the Sun Path, echoing the belief that the solar body was long ago worshipped as the mightiest of all gods. Today the Balinese honor the Sun God with the title Siwa Raditya.

From the tapak dara came the form of the symbol we know today as the swastika.

The swastika is a mandala of purity for Balinese Hindus. It also symbolizes the balance of the Earth as it rotates upon its axis; each direction is guarded by a respective holy being (radiating the sacred light of Ida Sang Hyang Widhi, the Balinese name for the Deity). Guardian gods are called dawa sanga swastika: the fundamental power of buana agum [macroscopic: planet Earth] and buana alit [microcosmic – human beings].

Consider the close relationship of the word swastika  with the ceremonial greeting word Swastyastu, deriving from Sanskrit su- (goodness) and –asti (hope). Uttered before the word Swastyastu is the seed mantra Om (Hyang Widhi). Om itself derives from A (ang), a Sanskrit letter depicting Dewa Brahma, the God of Creation, Ung (u) Dewa Wishnu, the God of Sustenance, and Mang (n) Dewa Shiwa, the God of Destruction and Transformation.

We can therefore understand the sense of Om Swastyastu as “We pray you will be kept healthy and happy through the mercy and blessings of Ida Hyang Widhi”. By reciting this spiritual greeting, we are actually praying for the protection of Ida Sang Hyang Widhi over all Creation.

Om Swastyastu is uttered when greeting someone, and also as an invocation when about to speak at a formal occasion. A similar, closing salutation is Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, which means “Oh God, fill our hearts with peace, peace on Earth, peace for all time.”

An offering is also made, consisting of rice, sirih, and a coconut shell containing fire. The symbol of the god Brahma is arranged crosswise to make the swastika form, a Hindu symbol for the world’s safety. The aim of the offering is to reward the spirits who do not disturb the preparatory work of the ceremony.

“Victory to good works and righteousness!”

While I, like most male Earthlings, do not enjoy contemplating that I might somehow be thick, it was not until José Argüelles pointed out1 that the swastika was a formal, squared-off spiral, I didn’t really note its voluptuous good humour popping out of winding galaxies, hypnotic whirlpools, criminal fingerprints, seedy sunflowers, twists of hair on scalps, corny video feedback spirals.

My first real [awakening] encounter with the symbol took place during a stroll along the Burrard Inlet docks one dreary Vancouver afternoon. I looked up at the prow of a crusty Indian freighter and there on the prow was proudly displayed a big black one, blowing my brain into action. Ding went the bell, zing went the strings of my heart.

Hey hey, the swat-stikker’s doing the twist all over the joint, a billion-year jitterbug and it don’t slow down. It is there without becoming obtrusive, at least until some unemployed Austrian gets it into his cute little skull (to be blown apart in the bunker but whoops that’s the last act) to nick it for his gang symbol.

In short, it’s a most attractive item that the Nazis, big amoral thieves long before Madison Avenue legitimized image larceny, stole for their crank philosophy. 

They stole the fasces. The uniforms came straight from Hollywood B films. Even Hitler’s toothbrush moustache, which Charlie Chaplin complained Der Führer had swiped from him! Who’d steal from the little tramp, come now!

Really, it’s so very compelling, so very attractive, this square spiral. Apart from its unfortunate recent history, what lover of fine design and spiritual centering could resist it? The swas is an image with appeal, that frisky four-legged spider crawling into your consciousness, and it has worked its way into the rubbery attention span of more than one teen lout who, armed [with spray-can] and dangerous [yeah sure] faces the great void of the challenging blank wall. Like the brat ever knew more about 20th Century European history than he was injected from the boob tube.

Hmm, I wonder whether Jung ever got into this act, sitting down over some suds (Oktoberfest perhaps) for a man-to-man talk with Herr Schicklgruber about this carny sideshow of his, you know? Like Adolf, clean up your act, particularly if you want to keep using the swastika. Just sit down one calm afternoon and give it some thought, say while paring your Aryan toenails, use your brain to sharpen this contradiction why doncha. Put on some Schönberg and settle down.

The author cannot impart these asides to you, dear sticky-eyeball visitor, without clarifying just where he originates: ejaculating phallacies and twelve-tone music, Filipino cigars (and willing vigorous partners in saucy carnal acts for fun and money) as well as heavy-duty meditation, sports/racing motorcycles, mad monkeys and protesting crows. One of a kind, they ran him out of more than one Vancouver, and it wasn’t just the twister the locals objected to. He just wasn’t serious enough about people’s pet peeves.

Look who has crawled into Economy Class. It’s an overweight ‘murken battleaxe, about 50 and already jamming her elbow across the awkwardly mutual armest, grumbling as we rotate out of Ngurah Rai: the 747 accelerates upwards and she goes into her number: “We should not give those people one damn cent more of foreign aid until they get rid of every one of those swastikas! I’m Jewish and I won’t stand for it!” Lady, what can I tell you? Do I dare to be so peachy? Hey lady, have some peanuts, read an inflight magazine. This here twirler has sure got a bum steer in Century Number Twenty. Curve ball. Dee-railed. Wong turn. Ripped ticket.

Give it a couple of more to get straightened out, its natural scintillation shaking off all negative repercussions. Come 2200 it will be seen at least as harmless as the skull and crossbones (once a feared symbol too, lest we forget).

Take me and the other swas loonies and what we share in common, in spite of astronomical distances in style and expression, is the

Take a drive around Bali. “Be prepared” is the Boy Scout marching song (as Tom Lehrer reminds us). Around every corner is another swastika. On practically every gate and temple, decorating holy and demonic figurines.

As the T-shirt that girl was wearing in Bangkok one day proclaimed “Lucky for You”!

This is for the Balinese a good-luck symbol, an authoritative mark of well-being, purity of power, spiritual prosperity. Ask anyone and get told. As for the rest of the Indonesians, they’ve seen too many corny Western TV shows, so it’s generally “German Nazi” they’ll respond with (Muslims and Christians here are studiously disinterested in anything to do with Hinduism, by the way).

You can’t even get away from the swastika in greetings: OM SWASTYASTU! arises from the same root beer.

It is so fundamental to Balinese culture that farmers often plant rice-paddies in swastika patterns to ensure a healthy harvest. Like crop circles in the West, nyaah.

Young Sundanese maiden with one on her wrist, when Keith and pals and yours truly the author stopped off for a cold beer on the way to Jonggol, West Java one afternoon years ago. She was ready for a fuck (otherwise, why had we blundered into her bar?) but I preferred a snapshot, like the fashionably late Miss Warhol (whom Gore Vidal famously described as “the only genius I’ve ever met with an IQ of 60”).

We are a small but determined band of swat-pals. Between Guru Svastika raising lots of kids as well as hell in Der Vaterland, and ManWoman kicking up his heels with the heifers in Cranbrook Brutish Columbia, and Robert R. Weger self-publishing the serious The Swastika, a History, and as a perusal or rather peroogle of Google will reveal a whole load of other curious sorts toying with the image (many too shy or hog-cautious to publicly espouse its cheery crackliness). We only act out the obvious, with an elderly fan dancer, around for long enough to see tinpot dictators like Hilter come and go. Puny Earthlings stand off: it don’t mean shit either way, for with or without the money, power and public relations of the JDL types or modern PC Nazis, the stained but unbent square spiral will ride high again, eventually seizing once more its place in the inventory of ikons, its mid-Twentieth Century aberration seen in perspective as but one of many gross excesses in the hog-wild continuum we find ourselves invited to participate in. never a dull moment, right, whoopee.

Written by Byron Black, aka Baron Infinity Mind von Voidville
Research by I. Gusti Ngurah Mertawibhawa