Some Symbolic Meanings Behind The Different Foms of Crosses

I never was very drawn to the form of the cross, as it represented suffering in my mind. Old conditioning! Then one day about 4 years ago I was taking a gong meditation class here in India. I intuitively asked everyone ,who at that time were laying on the floor on mattresses in a circle, to open their arms out wide and visualize a column of rose pink light flooding their heart centre with love. I was playing the gong very slow and quite loud. I opened my own arms out to experience the feelings. I could feel my heart opening when I was visualizing the rose pink entering my heart centre. I felt a great positive connection to the form of the cross overwhelm my emotions and body. From that day forth I have been very interested with the symbolism of different forms of crosses.

The last few days I have been researching on the net. I am so amazed at the different meanings from various cultures. I would like to share with you all some of the information I have come across. I will only touch on a few for now as there are so many.

Traditional ... Indian children light candles forming a swastika - the Hindu symbol of prosperity.

Swastika Stone - this is located at the end on Panorama Walk above  Ilkley.                                                                          

The swastika is an archetypal, universal human religious symbol. It appears on every continent and
is as old as humankind. A marker of the sun's travels, it can be seen on Pictish rock carvings, adorning ancient Greek pottery, and on ancient Norse weapons and implements. It was scratched on cave walls in France seven thousand years ago. A swastika marks the beginning of many Buddhist scriptures, and is often incised on the soles of the feet of the Buddha in statuary. In the Jain religion, it is a symbol of the seventh Jina (Saint), the Tirthankara Suparsva. To Native Americans, the swastika is a symbol of the sun, the four directions, and the four seasons.

The swastika is a type of solar cross, with arms bent at right angles, suggesting a whirling or turning motion. Long before the symbol was co-opted as an emblem of Hitler's Nazi party, it was a sacred symbol to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist religions, as well as in Norse, Basque, Baltic, and Celtic Paganism.

The name Swastika is derived from the Sanskrit language, from "su," meaning "good," and "vasti"," meaning "being" (together; well being) In India, it is used as a fertility and good luck charm. The right turning Indian swastika symbolizes the sun and positive energy, and is most commonly associated with the deity Ganesh, a God of prosperity and wealth. Some Indians regard an anti-clockwise swastika as an opposing, dark force- a symbol of the godess Kali. Together, the two can be regarded as symbolically similar to the Yin Yang symbol of Taoism, or the two Pillars of Kabbalah.

The swastika is also known for its uses in heraldry as the tetraskelion, the fylfot cross (fylfot meaning 'four feet,' a term used in european heraldry), the cross gammadion (because it resembles four greek letter 'gammas.'), and the hakenkreutz (German, hooked cross).

The swastika used in Buddhist art and scripture is known as a Manji, and represents Dharma, universal harmony, and the balance of opposites. When facing left, it is the Omote (front) Manji, representing love and mercy. Facing right, it represents strength and intelligence, and is called the Ura (rear facing) Omoje. Balanced Manji are often found at the beginning and end of buddhist scriptures.

In pre-Christian Pagan Europe, the swastika was generally a solar symbol, but in many cases, its use dates so far back in history that its original meaning is obscured. In Baltic regions, the swastika is sometimes called the "thunder cross," and is associated with the Thunder God Perkons (Perkunis).

A Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant

Ankh (see also Cross, Knot) The Egyptian crux ansata, or looped tau-cross. This magic knot or cross, known as Nem Ankh, the key of life, was often used in the iconography of opposites. The loop over the tau-cross could stand for the Sun, for Heaven and Earth as the macrocosm and for man as the microcosm. It is generally interpreted as a symbol which expresses the reconciliation of opposites of the integration of active and passive qualities. This is amply confirmed by the fact that, when recumbent, the ankh symbolizes both male and female sexual attributes in precisely the same way as the very realistic Hindu depiction of a Hermaphrodite standing on a Lotus flower. Champdor gives a more traditional interpretation as:

the symbol of the millions of years of the life to come. The loop is the perfect symbol of what has neither beginning nor end and stands for the soul which is eternal because it has sprung from the spiritual essence of the gods. The cross represents the state of trance in which the neophyte struggled, or, more precisely, the state of death, the crucifixion of the chosen victim, and in some temples the priests used to lay the neophyte on a bed shaped like the cross... The possessor of the geometric key to the hidden mysteries, of which the symbol was this very looped cross, was able to open the gates of the Kingdom of the Dead and penetrate the hidden meaning of eternal life.

Gods, kinks and Isis (almost invariably) are depicted holding the ankh to show that they command the powers of life and death and that they are immortal. The dead also carry it at the time their souls are weighed or when they are aboard the Boat of the Sun God, as a sign that they seek this same immortality from the gods. Furthermore the ankh symbolized the spring from which flowed divine virtues and the elixir of immortality. Therefore to hold the ankh was to drink from that well. It was sometimes held upside down by the loop - especially in funeral rites when it suggested the shape of a key and in reality was the key which opened the gateway of the tomb into the Fields of Aalu, the realm of eternity. Sometimes the ankh is placed on the forehead, between the eyes, and then it symbolizes the duty of the adept to keep secret the mystery into which he has been initiated - it is the key which locks these secrets away from the uninitiated. Blessed by the supreme vision, endowed with clairvoyance to pierce the veil of the beyond, he cannot attempt to reveal the mystery without losing it for ever.

The ankh is often set in the same category as the Girdle of Isis, as a symbol of eternity. This is not because its straight lines may be lengthened in the imagination to infinity, but because they converge upon and meet in a closed loop. This loop symbolizes the inexhaustible essence of the life force identified with Isis, from whom life flows in all its forms. it is therefore carried by all those who wish to share her life. Hence the ankh may be identified with the Tree of Life, with its trunk and foliage.

The significance of the Girdle of Isis is far more complex. Like rope work or plaited hair round the arms and the loop of the cross, it infuses the concept of life and of immortality with the concept of the knots which tie down mortal life on Earth and which must be unraveled to enjoy immortality. `Free your bonds,' says The Egyptian Book of the Dead, `untie the knots of Nephthys.' And again: `Shining are those who carry the girdle. Oh! Bearers of the Girdle.' The same meaning is conveyed by the Tibetan Buddhist book called The Book of the Untying of the Knots. While the plain looped cross symbolizes divine immortality, sought or attained, the Girdle of Isis makes clear the conditions under which that immortality is obtained - by the untying of knots - dénouement in the true sense of the word.

A Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, translated from the French by John Buchan-Brown, Blackwell, 1994 (the French edition was originally published by Editions Robert Laffront S.A. in 1969, 2nd ed. 1982)

Celtic Cross and Irish Cross - Symbols and meaning