Royalty and Pontificate 7
It is relevant to add that the term Chakravarti, far from being particularly Buddhist, applies very well, following the Hindu tradition, to the function of Manu or Mann's representatives. 'Chakravarti' literally means 'He who makes the wheel turn', that is to say the one who, being at the centre of all things, directs all movement without himself participating in it, or who is, to use Aristotle's words, the 'unmoving mover'. [^12]
It should be emphasized here that this centre constitutes the fixed point known symbolically to all traditions as the 'pole' or axis around which the world rotates. This combination is normally depicted as a wheel in Celtic, Chaldean, and Hindu traditions. [^13] Such is the true significance of the swastika, seen world-wide, from the Far East to the Far West, which is intrinsically the 'sign of the pole'. [^14] It is doubtless here, for the first time in modern Europe, that its real sense has been made known. Contemporary scholars have vainly essayed all kinds of fantastic theories to explain the swastika symbol, but the majority of them, plagued by fixed ideas, have been unable to comprehend it as anything other than an exclusively 'solar' sign. [^15] If it has occasionally become such a symbol, it can only have been by accident, as a result of some disturbi quite comparable sense Chinese tradition uses the expression the fathom Middle'. It is noteworthy that, according to Masonic symbology, the Masters gather in the 'Middle Room'.
perceiving the swastika as a symbol of movement, although this interpretation, without being false, is far from sufficient, as it acts not from random movement but from a rotation effected around an immutable centre or axis. It is this fixed point, it should be stressed, that constitutes the essential element to which the symbol in question directly relates. [^16]
It can be understood now, through what has been said, that the 'Lord of the World' must have a function that is essentially both organizational and regulatory (it is not without reason that this latter word possesses the same root as rex and regere), so that this function can be summed up in a word such as 'balance' or 'harmony', corresponding precisely to the Sanskrit term 'dharma', [^17] by which we understand the reflection in the manifested world of the immutability of the supreme Principle. Consequently, one can understand why the 'Lord of the World' has the fundamental attributes of 'justice' and 'peace' as they epitomize the balance and harmony inherent in the 'world of man' (manavaloka). [^18] This is a point of the greatest importance and, beyond its general purport, let it be noted by those who allow themselves certain chimeral fears, such as are faintly echoed in the last lines of Ossendowski's book.