Svas'tika

Svas'tika, a religious symbol used by early races of Aryan stock from Scandinavia to Persia and India. It consists of a Greek cross, either enclosed in a circle the circumference of which passes through its extremities $\backslash oplus$, or with its arms bent back thus $\backslash text\{H\}$, and was intended to represent the sun, being found invariably associated with the worship of Aryan sun-gods (Apollo, Odin). Similar devices occur on the monumental remains of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, and on objects exhumed from the prehistoric burial-mounds of the United States. See CROSS.