Hey, did you know about Ancient Ambigrams like Swasthik & Yin Yang!

While I was reading an ancient encyclopedia, I came across with a fact. And that fact hit me hard. How couldn’t it? I didn’t know that the auspicious Hindu symbol, Swasthik was something called as an ambigram! And, I didn’t even know what ambigrams were, actually. While I researched about them, I came to know a lot of stuff. And, some of the things did really fascinate me!!!

Isn’t it fascinating to know something alien you didn’t have any idea before?

Well, here I am to tell you about one more alien thing to your mind. About ANCIENT AMBIGRAMS.

Are you good to go?

My vision towards the Ambigrams:

After knowing that the word Ambigram was coined by Douglas Hofstadter, an American scholar of cognitive science, best known as the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the book Gödel, Escher, Bach, I was shocked that the term had got into the existence quite lately! So, would that mean that before that, for so many mystical symbols and names, there was a big question mark of what to call them? Well, that thing, I can’t say but of course, we have witnessed such ancient symbols and religious texts far back in 79 AD when the first sator square palindrome was found in the ruins of Pompeii. A sator square using the mirror writing for the representation of the letters S and N was carved in a stone wall in Oppède (France) between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages .

However, I had come with the terms about Yin Yangs and Swasthiks to be the ambigrams as per Dan Brown’s novel Angels and Demons. So little did I know about both of the symbols as well as with the little matter of being the information as true or not. So, I did try to know. And got the origins of both the symbols.

SWASTHIK:

The word Swasthik is derived from Sanskrit language and 7000 years ago, this symbol which meant good hope, well being and fortune, was used in India, Indonesia and China as well. It was also found to be appeared on European artifacts as well.

We all know, in 1920, Adolf Hitler adopted the Swasthik symbol as the symbol of his Nazi Party. This was because, the German, too had a history linked with the Aryan culture which shared the same symbol that denoted well being and hope.

However, I got to know that following the defeat of Nazi Party, the Europe had banned the use of Swasthik as it was considered as a violation to laws. There have been lots of controversies with this symbol in different parts of the world, but, at the same time, the parts of the world like India, etc still continue to glorify this ancient symbol which is believed to bring good fortune and happiness to their homes.

YIN YANG:

Well, Yin Yang symbol had been a total alien to me initially, compared to Swasthik. I came to know that the symbol shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section. Yin is the receptive and Yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both women and men as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order). The Universe has created a balance between good and bad. And everything has its opposite. It states the energy which keeps a balance in its proportions.

This symbol has originated from China. The symbol tries to explain the duality of everything in the universe. Like, life and death, dark and light, health and sickness, cold and hot, etc.

The dark side represents Yin. That stands for female, dark, cold, moon, creative, soft, stillness, downward, submission, contracting, etc.

The white side represents Yan. That stands for Male, logical, creation, upward, dominance, hot, hard, mountains, etc.

Anyways, this is it.

Let me know if you want more such things from me. And if you haven’t SUBSCRIBED to my blog yet, then I think you should do it right now.

Thank You.

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