SWASTIKA (স্বস্তিক )

SWASTIKA (স্বস্তিক )

The swastika (in Bengali স্বস্তিক) is an important Bengali Hindu symbol used for every religious and auspicious ceremony. All religious items and spaces are sanctified with this symbol, which is traced using the middle finger and smearing red sindoor (red vermilion) paste. House entrances and doorways are decorated with this symbol and every space and item consecrated with this symbol for weddings, festivals and ceremonies. The symbol relates with the invocation of Shakti (the female energy). Jains have considered them to be one of the eight auspicious or 'Mangal' signs. Swastika has also been accepted as an auspicious sign by Buddhists. It was one of the auspicious signs that were seen on the palm of Buddha's hand after his birth. The 'Basudhara' that is painted on the wall of the house at the time of marriage in the Bengali Hindu Reform is also a modified or regional form of a kind of swastika symbol. This basudhara is painted during Nandimmukh or Nannimukh. Here, along with remembering the ancestors, the desire for procreation is also expressed. All the elements and colours used in The Basudhara symbolise the same in agriculture, genealogy, sun, earth and birth.