Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Buddhist Flag

Colours

The five colours of the flag represent the six colours of the aura that emanated from the body of the Buddha when he attained Enlightenment:

Blue (Nila): Loving kindness, peace and universal compassion


Yellow (Pita): The Middle Path - avoiding extremes, emptiness


Red (Lohita): The blessings of practice - achievement, wisdom, virtue, fortune and dignity


White (Odata): The purity of Dharma - leading to liberation, outside of time or space


Orange (Manjesta): The Buddha's teachings - wisdom



The sixth vertical band, on the fly, is made up of a combination of rectangular bands of the five other colours, and represents a compound of the other five colours in the aura's spectrum. This compound colour is referred to as Pabbhassara ('essence of light').

In Tibet, the colours of the stripes represent the different colours 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.

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