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Symbols belonging to religious traditions — the marks of faith, worship and identity across Abrahamic, Dharmic, East Asian and other traditions.
Here when the symbol is used within a living or historical religious tradition. Marks used for divination, magic or personal spiritual practice outside an organised tradition are filed under spiritual and interpretive.
Culturally established and historically documented rather than standardised. Several records here carry a sensitivity note, and the swastika record exists largely to hold two irreconcilable readings side by side.
All 169symbols in this domain, A–Z.
A raised open palm facing outward, fingers up — the gesture of fearlessness.
A raised open palm with a wheel at its centre, bearing the word ahimsa.
The divine name as one glyph.
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, used together.
A winged human figure carved as a monument or in relief.
An ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic sign shaped like a cross with a looped top, signifying life.
A decorated circle closing a verse.
A wheel of curving rays.
A set of eight auspicious marks drawn together in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain traditions.
The ancient auspicious mark as it continues in Asian religious practice.
A star of nine points.
Three lines and two stars.
A pattern of strokes carrying news.
A heart-shaped leaf with a long tapering drip tip.
Signs of interval, not of pitch.
A cross with a ring encircling the intersection of its arms.
A hanging or standing vessel for burning incense.
Two Hebrew letters read as the word for 'living', worn as a pendant.
A clef that moves.
The Greek letters X and P superimposed as a monogram of Christ.
A tiered tower in profile.
A single winding path set into a floor — not a maze.
The building points east, and that is why 'the east end' means the altar.
Two descending notes joined in one neume.
Money left at a shrine, well or grave.
A spiral shell drawn with its opening to the right, blown as a horn in ritual.
A ringed cross painted or cut on a church wall, marking an anointing.
Greek letters counting in Egypt.
A row of small carved heads under the eaves.
A spoked wheel representing the Buddha's teaching.
Both hands cupped in the lap, right resting on left, thumb tips touching.
A dove carved on a monument, often in flight or with an olive branch.
Five colours in five points.
A closed lattice of interwoven right-angled lines with no beginning and no end.
Thirteen months, one of five days.
Marks for chanting, above the line.
A painted thanks on a wall.
An offering left in thanks for a prayer answered.
Five letters that change shape at the end.
One throws water off the roof; the other does not, and only one is a gargoyle.
Letters counted as numbers.
A stroke marking an abbreviation.
Two strokes marking a multi-letter short form.
A handbell with a vajra-shaped handle.
A pair of fish drawn upright and facing one another, tails down.
The compass direction a burial faces, set by tradition.
A face with foliage growing from it, carved in a church.
A paired stone beast set at an entrance.
A mark from a certifying body stating that a product is permissible under Islamic law.
An open right-hand palm, often with an eye motif, used across Jewish, Muslim, Christian and secular Middle Eastern/North African traditions as a protective symbol.
A lunar year pulled back into the sun.
A mark binding a word to the next.
A mark dividing a verse into clauses.
A year counted from a journey.
Abbreviated Greek letters naming the figure in an icon.
Three letters, I H S, carved as a Christian monogram.
A written Gurmukhi phrase used as an emblem, opening the Sikh scripture.
A letter turned around in the margin.
A composite emblem shaped like a standing figure, containing a swastika, a raised palm and a crescent.
Four arms for four states of being.
An honorific for the divine name.
A loop of prayer beads, conventionally 108 with a larger head bead.
A double-edged sword within a circle, flanked by two curved swords.
Signs for the days of the moon.
A carved floral door lattice.
A carved post with a fierce face.
A letter or monogram in a shape, identifying the body certifying a product kosher.
A drumhead divided into four.
A lamb carved on a monument, most often a child's.
One letter written oversized.
An upright cross with a shorter crossbar set above the centre.
A trumpet-shaped lily carved on a monument.
Vestment and hanging colours following the church year.
A stylised open flower on a stem, the commonest devotional plant symbol in Asia.
A concentric geometric diagram, square within circle.
A stone carved with mantra text, stacked in walls.
A script that travelled with a religion.
A dot that makes a silent letter sound.
A high stroke joining two words.
A Bon liturgical script.
Who made a mark is the first question, and it changes what it can mean.
A small angular monogram identifying who cut the stone.
Dots above letters in the line.
A scratched semicircle of lines on a south wall — a sundial for service times.
A script for a language nobody spoke.
A skull, coffin or hourglass on a ring, worn as a reminder of mortality.
A seven-branched lampstand, distinct from the nine-branched hanukkiah.
A seven-branched lampstand, used as a Jewish memorial marker.
A stroke marking secondary stress.
A niche in a mosque wall showing the direction of prayer.
A string of thirty-three or ninety-nine beads used for counting recitations.
A carving on the underside of a hinged choir seat.
Codified hand positions in Indian religion and dance.
The unresolved question of how neumes were timed.
Dots and lines beneath the letters.
A triangular saffron flag bearing the Khanda.
A contracted sacred name under a bar.
A forked post used as an altar.
A second Hmong script, in the diaspora.
The sacred syllable and symbol ॐ, representing the totality of existence in Hinduism, and used with distinct meanings in Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
A cross with three crossbars, the lowest set at a slant.
A long feathered palm leaf carved on a monument.
A vertical stroke separating two words.
A mark of honour over a short form.
A logographic script that became an alphabet.
Ships, crosses and names scratched by people passing through.
A shell pointing the way.
A basin with a drain, and a cupboard recess — both beside the altar.
Two stacked notes read from the bottom up.
A drawn point of call.
Strings whose bead count identifies the tradition.
Five colours in a fixed order representing the elements.
A cylinder inscribed with mantras and turned by hand.
Two hands pressed together with fingers pointing upward.
A domed canopy on a staff, hung with a fringe or valance.
A single square note in plainchant notation.
Read this, though it is written that.
A small letter marking a required pause.
A paired mark offering one stop of two.
Small letters marking where to stop.
A small letter marking an optional pause.
A small letter forbidding a pause.
A mark indicating a place of prostration.
An honorific for a companion.
A line meaning no dot.
A coloured floor pattern made at a threshold.
A staff with a single serpent coiled around it, associated in Greek mythology with Asclepius, the god of medicine.
The stair to nowhere, and the beam socket above the chancel arch.
A loop of beads in five groups of ten, with a short pendant tail ending in a crucifix.
Cloths, ribbons and offerings tied to a tree.
A whole blessing in one character.
A diagonal cross in the form of an X.
Digits written above the syllables.
A three-leaved clover, the emblem of Ireland.
A female figure displaying her genitals, carved on a church or castle.
Two dots meaning little or nothing.
Zigzag folded paper strips hung in Shinto ritual.
A twisted rice-straw rope with hanging paper strips.
An opening blessing on the page.
Indian letters preserved in Japan.
A crescent at the top of a stylised human-shaped universe.
Two stacked dots closing a verse.
A slot cut obliquely through a wall to see the altar.
Nine interlocking triangles in a lotus ring, used as a focus for meditation.
A crescent moon paired with a star.
A six-pointed star formed from two overlapping triangles.
An ancient hooked-cross symbol with a long history as a sign of good fortune across many cultures, and a separate, more recent history as the central emblem of Nazi Germany.
A branch with paper, offered.
A struck bell marking time or attention in worship.
A figure drawn from a measured grid.
A mark applied to the forehead, whose direction identifies the tradition.
A wave over a shortened sacred word.
A gate of two uprights and two crossbars, marking the entrance to a shrine.
A round-bellied covered vase with a narrow neck, drawn sealed rather than open.
Three stacked lines, each solid or broken.
A three-pronged spear head, the attribute of Shiva.
Twenty named days in a cycle.
A crescent and dot for the sacred.
A short ribbed sceptre with prongs curving in at both ends.
A cylindrical standard of layered fabric on a pole, drawn as a tiered column.
A square note with a descending stem.
Thumb and forefinger touching to form a circle, other fingers extended.
A circular diagram of the realms of rebirth.
A horse carrying a flaming jewel, printed on prayer flags.
A diagram built to a construction.
A peacock standing for an angel.
A script for a closed tradition.
A circle divided by an S-curve into a dark and a light half, each containing a dot of the other.
Peace upon a prophet.