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Last year I was walking in the "Camino de Santiago", in Spain, where I met a guy who showed me a symbol engraved in the stone of a bridge. It was a Sun that reflected its rays on the sea. He told me that it was related to Nirvana and the path one has to follow.

enter image description here

When I came back from the journey, I tried looking for this symbol on the internet, but didn't find anything about it. The most similar one I found it has been the Unalome symbol. But it seems that all its references are linked to the tatoos, and I didn't find any wikipedia page or Buddhist website talking about it.

Back to my question, is the Unalome a Buddhist symbol? Is there a Buddhist symbol similar to the one I have described?

giuseppe
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  • The most common symbol of the Camino de Santiago is a scallop shell -- https://vivecamino.com/en/the-pilgrim-shell-the-origin-of-the-symbol-of-the-camino-de-santiago-no-472/ -- that could look like a sun's rays -- was it that which you saw? – ChrisW May 24 '20 at 07:55
  • And/or there's a dictionary definition of Unalome here -- https://www.linternaute.fr/dictionnaire/fr/definition/unalome/ -- which doesn't look to me like a sun at all -- it says, "Symbole arcane qui, dans le bouddhisme, représente le chemin qu'il faut parcourir avant d'atteindre l'Eveil. Il se présente comme un trait formant des noeuds puis se prolongeant en ligne. Cela représente la difficulté du début du chemin (les noeuds), puis le fait d'atteindre l'Eveil (ligne droite)." I guess that might be plausible explanation but I don't know whether that's a reliable reference. – ChrisW May 24 '20 at 08:23
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    Buddhism has no symbols at all. all made ups by followers. – pl-jay May 24 '20 at 08:47
  • @ChrisW no, it's not the camino de santiago symbol. I tried to sketch what it was here https://www.autodraw.com/share/3HDO2IWUWF48. By the way, I didn't find many sources pointing out that unalome is a Buddhist symbol, neither picture of it, but only inked tatoos. – giuseppe May 24 '20 at 08:56
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    A wheel with (usually) eight spokes is a Buddhist symbol -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra -- I wonder whether what you saw was a Chi Ro Christogram -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christogram -- possibly written with a letter "S" underneath it for "Salvator". – ChrisW May 24 '20 at 09:14

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Look for the word "urna", not unalome. The unalome comes from Thai religious and superstitious tattoos. It's a stylized Thai equivalent of the urna (the tuft/curl of hair between the Buddha's eyebrows), and originated in Sak Yant, Thai religious and superstitious tattooing. If you're a Thai Buddhist, then it could have meaning to you. Otherwise, probably not.

Zac Anger
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