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dopameantoday at 8:16 PM2 repliesview on HN

What does the swasitka mean? I see it all over the map and assume it's not what it looks like to me.


Replies

rawgabbittoday at 8:42 PM

The counterclockwise one is a Buddhist temple. The torii gate symbol is a Shinto shrine.

krapptoday at 8:19 PM

Before the Nazis co-opted (and corrupted) it, the swastika was commonly known as a positive religious sun-symbol[0]. On Japanese maps they denote the location of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, where it's called a manji. Even ancient Christians used it[1].

Fun fact, which everyone probably already knows, one of the dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda for the NES was shaped like this[2].

[0]https://medium.com/my-bookmark/history-of-the-12-000-year-ol...

[1]https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/108825/why-...

[2]https://www.zeldadungeon.net/the-legend-of-zelda-walkthrough...