The actual logo design came from an Airline TV advertisement which showed a swan in slow motion flight, its head stationary with the neck undulating in a subtle wave as its wings powered it along.

The simplest explanation for its origin is the bird is a swan, and a swan in Sanskrit is a Hansa. Influence can be seen in Indonesian and Malay languages where a Goose (or a swan) is an Angsah. Sanskrit is actually the language of the ancient white Aryan race who once dominated central Asia, and German philosophers have often derived inspiration from its traditions. One honourable legacy of this is the great world airline, Lufthansa.

So far this is all pretty mundane, but for those who want, the story can go a little deeper as there is an oriental myth which states that at the third heaven, soul bathes in the sacred Lake of Mansarover and emerges as a Hansa, the symbol of a purified soul.

We could ask which came first, the truth behind the myth or the Sanskrit language which recorded it.

Unfortunately for the Hansa, the myth goes on to suggest that this is the end of the story, that Soul blends in with some divine matrix, losing its identity like a drop of water is absorbed into a river’s flow.

There is however another way which disagrees with this ending, and it says our Hansa sees this as only the end of matter, mind, and time, and flies on and into the ever expanding worlds of Oneness and Eternity, retaining its uniqueness and individuality, more like a Swan floating on an Ocean of Love and Mercy than being lost in the fluid below.