1921 | The Svastika and the Omkara., 239 
against the Vedic religion of rituals, Jainism and Buddhism 
should be looked upon as rebel offshoots of a religion which 
had, in its pursuit of knowledge and in its anxiety to maintain 
connexion with the older religion, attached exaggerated impor- 
tance to what might with reason be regarded as a mere wo 
is highly suggestive and cannot be overlooked in its relation to 
the identity of the svastika with the omkara. 
But a serious objection to the supposed sacred character 
y pre-historic man has been 
and comparatively insignificant objects, those in common use, 
such as vases, pots, jugs, implements, tools, household goods 
and utensils, objects of the toilet, ornaments, etc., and 
infrequently on statues, altars and the like,’ ‘ all pretense of the 
holy or sacred character of the Swastika should be given up, 
and it should (still with these exceptions) be considered as a 
charm, amulet, token of good luck or good fortune, or as an 
ornament or d2coration.’! I have shown above that the vases 
were not ‘comparatively insignificant objects,’ but, on the 
contrary, had definite religious and spiritual associations. “1s 
regards tools, implements and the Trojan spindle-whorls, the 
ancients may have actually worshipped them. In India it isa 
case of objects of the toilet, ornaments, etc. those of them that 
bear the svastika-mark may have formed part of “na racial 
since archeological 
ffected by what is 
thing to dedi- 
- ance on objects 
unconnected with tombs or temples, the a 
devi avi n quite conceivably conditioned by a half- 
reverential, half-aesthetic impulse such as actu " 
men and women to adopt it on buttons and brooches. 
ee ee 
Many 
] ; a 
Tbid., pp. 951 7 o my friend Kumar Sudhindrachandra Sinhasarma 
2 I am indebted 
for suggesting the parallel. 
