Shane_Usary Team 23

The "keel" is of Ming origin, part of an unfinished Buddhist monastery. The superstructure was built at the behest of the Dowager Empress of the dying Ch'ing dynasty as a summer retreat.

I've seen the swastika from Morocco to China, but more frequently in central Asia. One theory holds that it is of Chinese origin. Another, taken from "The Theory of the Aryan Invasions," holds that it was an Aryan symbol (not in the Nazi sense) for good luck and that it appeared wherever the Aryans (or Scythians, or whoever they were) "swept down" out of central Asia onto another people. According to that theory, they swept down upon the Gangetic Plain of India (perhaps in the third millenium B.C.E.) and brought with them the caste system, the foundations of Sanskrit, and the Vedas, inter alia. Since certain features of Hinduism found their way into Buddhism, it is consistent with the theory that the Buddhists adopted it. Just a thought.