Dear Sir,
We read with great interest the article on ‘The logo of the Endocrine Society of India’ which provided intellectually stimulating insights related to the possible explanations for the logo the society has chosen.[1] We would like to place on record our sincere appreciation to the authors for providing an inclusive and unifying explanation of the same by merging different cultures and by elucidating how endocrine/hormonal principles act as a bridge or link. This clearly brings forth the deep understanding and wisdom the founder members of this society had.
In this context, we would like to humbly add a couple of other possible facets to the interpretation of the logo.
Primarily, the staff in the middle has two snakes coiling around each other like a double helix. At first look, this may have some semblance to the DNA which may represent, symbolically, the significance of genetics in medicine and more particularly, endocrine disorders.
More interestingly, the snakes coiling six times (the sixth coil is behind the ‘S’) around each other create a close resemblance to the ‘CHAKRA’ principle in our yogic tradition.
The six chakras are supposed to represent the energy centres of our body, and on further introspection, they seem to roughly correspond to the endocrine glands at each level. Those six chakras with their respective glands are
muladhara—pineal
swadhisthana—hypothalamus
manipura—thyroid
anahata—pancreas
visuddhi—adrenal
ajna—gonads.
These centres or ‘chakras’ regulate the energy continuum of every human body. They must be properly aligned (i.e., homeostasis) for the free flow of cosmic energy (‘prana’/‘life force’). Once this state is achieved, the ‘prana’ is absorbed by the crown chakra called ‘sahasrara’ in Sanskrit.[2,3] The ‘sahasrara’ is probably represented as the bulbous portion of the top of the staff.
One attains ‘moksha/salvation’ once the life force culminates in the ‘sahasrara’—this ultimate freedom is probably symbolised by the two wings in the middle of the logo.
There always lies multiple explanations for any meaningful logo. It was our honour to put forth another such reasoning for this logo chosen by the ESI.
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Conflicts of interest
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REFERENCES
- 1.Kalra S, Saran S, Kasliwal R, Lodha S, Sharma B. The logo of the endocrine society of India. Indian J Endocr Metab. 2023;27:185–6. doi: 10.4103/ijem.ijem_468_22. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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