259 
1890.] punch-marked coins of Hindustan, Sfc. 
equal parts, united in the centre ; and this suggests a metaphoi’ical 
combination of the four castes united in a common society, the bent 
divisional ai'ms of which appear to indicate revolutions, or recurrence, 
i. e,, the endless revolution of reouri’ing births and deaths. When looked 
at carefully, each side, as it revolves, suggests the figure of the ‘ Trisula,' 
the emblem of Dharma, while the whole circulating object represents 
the ‘ Chahra ‘ or Buddha ; and the four compartments depict the four 
castes or Sangha. Thus this venerated symbol presents ns with the 
most condensed form of the ‘ Tri-ratna ; ’ and ascribing to it that mean- 
ing, we have a full and satisfactory explanation of its wide diffusion over 
every district to which Buddhism has penetrated” (Royal Asiatic 
Society Journal, 1887, p. 245.) 1 confess I see nothing whatever of this 
condensation of chalk into cheese, and were it so, it explains nothing of 
the significance of the symbol in times anterior to Buddhism. This 
dilBculty did not escape the notice of Mr. Pincott, who thus ingeniously 
avoids it. “ It is quite possible that this distinctly Buddhist emblem 
may have an accidental resembkneo to some object venerated by other 
nations.” Really this recuiTenoo to the argument of “accidental re- 
semblance ” between objects which are identical, can hardly be allowed 
greater weight now, than when urged a century ago, that ‘fossils’ were 
the result of ‘ accidental resemblance ’ to shells and such like organisms, 
but were not really organic bodies at all ! It seems to me refining, under 
the exigency of a theory, beyond the bounds of probability or reason, to 
maintain that the ‘ Swastika ’ so common an object on terracotta whorls 
at Troy (see Schliemann’s Troy) merely boars an accidental resemblance 
to that symbol, but is in reality something entirely distinct. 
Mr. Pincott also objects to those who view the ‘ Swastika ’ as a 
solar emblem, that were it so, it would not be made to revolve in op- 
posite directions. The same objection might be urged against the 
‘ Trishelis ’ as a solar emblem, but it is one to which I do not attach 
any importance. It it not improbable that the symbol, when revolving 
from left to right, may indicate the sun’s visible course through the sky, 
whilst the same symbol, when it revolves in the opposite direction, 
may represent the unseen course of the great luminai’y, when returning 
along his nocturnal path to the spot wherein he is wont to rise. 
It is of course quite true that the ‘ Stvastika ’ may, by adoption 
have come in time to bo regarded as distinctly a Buddhist emblem, as 
the ‘ Cross ’ is Christianity, but in neither case did the symbol originate 
with the faith it subsequently became selected to represent, and if this 
obvious conclusion is only frankly admitted, no necessity will remain 
for having to fall back on the inadequate, not to say exploded argument 
of “ accidental resemblance.” 
