The Sauvastika Knot

Generalities

A simple but very important knot. It is our best contender for the official "true lovers knot", if there in fact can be said to be such a thing. The agemaki, strangely (perhaps only to me?), is a functional part of samurai armour. In Asian knotting tradition, there are not many direct variations, although there are many knots similar in configuration (4 eared knots around a square-ish centre). In Western knotting tradition, however, there are many knots that look related.

Nomenclature

Due to cultural conversion issues, there are some problems with the Chinese translation of the sauvastika/buddha knot. There is no translation for the Japanese agemaki knot, although the transliteration/romanization could work. The Korean jamjari (dragonfly) knot is, to me, too married to its main use, in Korea, as the wings of a dragonfly.

As one of several knots constructed from linked overhands, it is one of the candidates vying for the name of "the true lover's knot". That said, there are many others that lay claim that title as well, so it is not disambiguating.

Perhaps there is a solution if tossing one more name into the mix isn't just too much. ABoK: #754 (also #745 and #742) is the emerald knot, a multistrand knot kin to the Matthew Walker knot but with the overhand knots that comprise it facing outwards, like the sauvastika during construction. Edit: upon further analysis, the emerald is not, in fact, a structure that could be slipped into a sauvastika. Once we're meandering in the name creation territory, though, we could just coin a new one. "Emerald" is taken but like the diamond it is a radial conglomeration of overhand knots, so why not "Ruby"? The sauvastika could then be the "two strand slipped ruby knot"... except that the unslipped version (two strand) has a name, the sympatico knot. Even though one is much more common and older as a named knot, should we reverse the etymology sequence and backform the names so that the sauvastika is a slipped sympatico?

Translation Notes

For some, the English translation of the 卍字結, sauvastika knot, is problematic. The sauvastika is an ancient symbol extensively used by both Hinduism and Buddhism among many other religions and traditions. It is a symbol of the sun, of blessing, of positive energy. The Chinese "卍" character as applied to the knot name, I suspect, has less to do with it's religious or spiritual symbolism and more to do with its shape as a pictograph. "字" translates as "word" reinforcing the idea that the name is shape based rather than symbolic.

While Hinduism uses both the right-facing (swastika) and left-facing (sauvastika) versions of the symbol for balance, Buddhism uses the sauvastika almost exclusively. That said, it is difficult to ignore the massive stigma modern westerners apply to the swastika. Indeed public displays of the swastika are illegal in Germany except for scholarly purposes. Generally speaking the distinction between the swastika and the sauvastika is lost on most western observers.

So it is that the translation of Chinese Knotting 3 names the knot the "Buddha Knot". Personally, I don't think that's really much better. You offend fewer casual observers, but the shape association is gone and you have a whole new set of cultural implications to go with "Buddha". What's the English speaking scholar of Asian knots to do? Can we coin an English name/translation that keeps the shape description qualities but avoids the pitfalls? Does "sauvastika" give you enough distance?

The Japanese "総角結び" has no translation, just the transliteration/romanization of "agemaki" knot. Agemaki, "総角", is defined as (1) old-fashioned boys' hairstyle (2) Meiji period women's hairstyle. I think we're in "top knot" territory.

Until recently, Koreans were happy to call both the Double Coin Knot and the sauvastika "날개 매듭" which translates as "wing knot". The reason being that what I might deem to be compound knots are are considered basic Korean knots, including a knotted dragonfly and a knotted butterfly. The double coin knot is traditionally part of the butterfly wings and the sauvastika is part of the dragonfly wings. Thanks to Bae Ky (배키), we can now disambiguate the two wings with the sauvastika now translated to 잠자리매듭.

Similar Knots

• 掛帶結 (挂带结) [guà dài jié] strap knot (hanging strap knot)
• 無耳翼卍字結 (无耳翼卍字结) [wú ěr yì wàn zì jié] loopless buddha knot (no ear sauvastika), ABoK #754, #745, and #742 two strand emerald knot
• ABoK #2289 3 lead 8 bight turk's head with extended bights
• ABoK #2302 false lover's knot
• ABoK #2303 a dissimilar knot tied with 2 overhand knots, which do not interlock
• plafond knot
• square flower knot
• 2x2 bao knot
• back of the cross knot

How To

While there may not be many direct variations of the sauvastika, there are many different methods to tie the basic knot.