Etymology
Sanskrit sauvastika is the vṛddhi of svastika, attested as an adjective meaning "benedictive, salutatory". The connection to a "reversed" svastika is probably first made by Eugène Burnouf in 1852, and taken up by Schliemann in Ilios (1880), based on a letter from Max Müller, who is in turn quoting Burnouf. The term sauwastika is used in the sense of "backwards swastika" by D'Alviella (1894):
“In India it bears the name of swastika, when its arms are bent towards the right, and sauwastika when they are turned in the other direction.”The term has been misspelled as suavastika, a term attributed to Max Müller by Wilson (1896). Wilson finds that "The 'Suavastika' which Max Müller names and believes was applied to the Swastika sign, with the ends bent to the left seems not to be reported with that meaning by any other author except Burnouf."
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