![[Burmese Buddhist flag]](../images/m/mm-buddh.gif)
image
by Ivan Sache 20 December 2000
Last modified: 2019-09-02 by rob raeside
Keywords: buddhism | myanmar | cambodia | vietnam |
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by Ivan Sache 20 December 2000
A Buddhist flag seen in Burma shows some differences with the usual Buddhist flag:
- the horizontal stripes spread over the half of the flag
- both the horizontal and vertical orange stripes are replaced with
green ones.
On the page above, it says that the six colours of the flag "represent the colours of the aura that emanated from the body of the Buddha". Concerning the Burmese flag, my source (see below) says that there were seven auras that emanated from the Buddha, five only being represented on the flag because two close shades of blue and yellow, respectively, were merged.
I I suspect the replacement of orange by green in the flag to represent a specificity of Burmese Buddhism. I know very little about Buddhism but I seem to remember that different "ways" are followed in different areas of Asia.
Source: visual observation by J. Renault in 1999, reported in Franciae Vexilla #20/66 December 2000.
Ivan Sache, 20 December 2000
![[Buddhist flag in Vietnam]](../images/r/rel_b_vn.gif)
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 29 June 2014
Aalthough the "standard" Buddhist flag, including its vertical variant, is in
widespread use in Vietnam, there is also a much less used variant, considering
the frequency of its appearing in the photos available on the Web, which
replaces orange with green. It was photographed in Hai Ba Trung temple, Hanoi,
on 2009-05-03:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonsanwell/3624914266.
The symbolism
of green is not clear. Perhaps it is used in order to make the color set which
represents five Dhyani Buddhas, as in the
Japanese Buddhist flag. This is possible, because Mahayana traditions make
the dominant form of Buddhism in Vietnam. On the other hand, a very similar flag
is used in Burma (Myanmar) where majority of believers follow the Theravada
tradition, which does not know the concept of Dhyani Buddhas, and the Vietnamese
flag resembles that one more than that from Japan. For these reasons, the
symbolism of this flag is yet to be revealed. It shall also be noted that green
on the Vietnamese flag is much lighter than on the Japanese and Burmese flags.
Tomislav Todorovic, 29 June 2014
![[Buddhist flag in Cambodia]](../images/r/rel-budkh.jpg)
image by Davor Pukljak, 2 May 2007
I am sending you a photo of a Buddhist flag I shot at Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh,
Cambodia March 2007, which is a bit different from the ones illustrated above.
Davor Pukljak, 2 May 2007
For other photos of Buddhist flags with the fly stripe wider than the others
see www.buddhanet.net/bodhi-tree/,
www.goldenbuddha.net/buddhist-flag/, or
www.prayerflags.com/display.asp?catid=4&pid=39. Interestingly the
last two examples substitute burgundy for saffron, with the following
explanation given at the
www.prayerflags.com web page: "In the past 50 years the colors of the
stripes have changed, at least in the Tibetan communities. There is an
explanation for this: To most Tibetans the colors of the stripes represent the
different colors of Buddhist robes united in one banner. Tibetan monastic robes
are maroon so the orange stripes in the original design are often replaced with
maroon. "
Ned Smith, 3 May 2007
![[Buddhist flag in Cambodia]](../images/r/rel_b_kh.gif)
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 29 June 2014
On this photograph above, the horizontal orange stripe looks as if it is
replaced by maroon. A photo from the same location, taken on 2011-01-06 at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-and-gem/5335683561 shows a flag on which
the orange color seems to have been completely replaced with a light shade of
brown, although there is also the possibility that it might be an illusion
created by lighting conditions during the photographing. However, another photo
from Cambodia, taken on 2013-02-23 (location not specified), clearly shows a
flag which employs brown color instead of orange. This is just a variant flag,
though, much less used than the "standard" Buddhist flag with orange color,
which can be concluded from the fact that it is shown on many fewer photos than
the flag with orange color.
Tomislav Todorovic, 29 June 2014
![[Linh Son congregation]](../images/b/buddh-ls.gif)
image by Ivan Sache
The yellow field represents Dharma, the lessons from Buddha as well as his body.
The red frame within the yellow field represents the effort needed to reach spirituality.
The red wheel is the Dharma wheel that Buddha had thrown when he gave his first lesson to the five Kundinya brothers.
The eight rays of the wheel represent the octuple way of the four truths.
The letters LS in the middle of the wheel stand for Linh Son.
The congregation was founded in 1975 in Joinville-le-Pont, near Paris, by Dr. Thich Huyen Vi who had studied for 13 years in India and had left Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Linh Son means "sacred mountain". This refers to a mountain in India called Ky Xa Quat or Linh Tuu Son [I guess these are Vietnamese names], where Buddha used to give lessons and meet his disciples.
There are now 8 Linh Son communities in France, one in Belgium and one in United Kingdom.
Source: L. Philippe in Franciae Vexilla #16/62, December 1999.
Ivan Sache, 19 December 1999
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