Dharma Wheel

The dharmachakra (IAST: dharmacakra; Pali dhammacakka; "Wheel of the Dharma"), is one of the Ashtamangala of Indian religions such as Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. It has represented the Buddhist dharma, Gautama Buddha's teaching of the path to Nirvana, since the time of early Buddhism. It is also connected to the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which has a meaning of "to hold, maintain, keep", and takes a meaning of "what is established or firm", and hence "law". It is derived from the Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman- with the meaning "bearer, supporter" in the historical Vedic religion conceived of as an aspect of Ṛta.

The wheel is also the main attribute of Vishnu, the Vedic god of preservation. Madhavan and Parpola note Chakra sign appears frequently in Indus Valley civilization inscriptions, on several seals. Notably, a sequence of four signs on the Dholavira signboard, four are the chakra.

Common Dharmachakra symbols consist of either 8 or 24 spokes.

Unicode Symbol: ☸ (U+2638: Wheel Of Dharma)

According to the Puranas of Hinduism, only 24 Rishis or Sages managed the whole power of the Gayatri Mantra. The 24 letters of the Gayatri Mantra depict those 24 Rishis. Those Rishis represent all the Rishis of the Himalayas, of which the first was Maharshi Vishvamitra and the last was Rishi Yajnavalkya, the author of Yājñavalkya Smṛti which is a Hindu text of the Dharmaśāstra tradition.

...
Wikipedia