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A composite emblem shaped like a standing figure, containing a swastika, a raised palm and a crescent.
Also known as: Jain emblem, Prateek Chihna, Jain symbol
The Jain Prateek Chihna is a composite emblem adopted in 1975 to mark the 2,500th anniversary of Mahavira's nirvana. Its outline represents the shape of the Jain universe; within it are a raised open palm containing the word ahimsa, a swastika, three dots, and a crescent with a dot at the top. Each element is older than the composite, which is what makes the emblem unusual: the parts are ancient and the assembly is dated and attributable.
Contains a swastika among its elements, in its original South Asian sense and with no connection whatever to the twentieth-century European appropriation of the shape. The mark predates that use by millennia and continues in unbroken religious use.
The swastika within this emblem is a South Asian religious symbol in continuous use for thousands of years. Its appropriation by the Nazi party in twentieth-century Europe is a separate history and is not what is shown here; the catalogue's own swastika record sets out both.
Contexts: Religion
Encloses a raised open palm bearing the word ahimsa — non-violence — which is the doctrine the emblem is most often used to signal.
Contexts: Religion
A tall outline broadening at the shoulders and narrowing at the waist, enclosing an open palm, a four-armed hooked cross, three dots in a row and a crescent with a dot above it.
The swastika is one of the elements enclosed by the emblem.