India’s Emblems and the Tiranga
The eagle and the lion are the traditional symbols of royalty in India.
The eagle (श्येन or गरुड) is the mount of Vishnu and it symbolizes the temporal power of the king. In Agnicayana, the greatest royal rite of the Vedic period, time was represented as an altar in the form of eagle. The eagle was chosen for its acute vision and its mastery of the skies and it remained the emblem of Maurya and Gupta Empires. The peacock was an insignia for battle since it is the mount of Skanda, the commander of the gods.
The double-headed eagle (गण्डभेरुण्ड) was the emblem of the Chalukyas, the Hoysalas, the Vijayanagara Empire, and the Wodeyar kings, and it has been adopted by the Karnataka State.
The lion, which is native to India, is another symbol of royalty. Indeed the throne in Sanskrit is सिंहासन, siṁhāsana, or “lion’s seat”.
In addition, Goddess Durgā, Skanda, Hanuman, or Bhairava were put on the royal lag.
The battle flag of Maharaja Ranjit Singh shows Goddess Durgā astride her lion with Bhairava on one side and Hanumān on the other.
The lion, native to India, also became a symbol of royalty in Iran and other nations. One of the Mughal flags, called Alam, showed temporal power by the flag with a lion and the sun (Sher-u-khorshid, Persian: شیر و خورشید, romanized: Šir-o xoršid). It is not so well known that the etymology of the Persian Sher-u-khorshid is best seen from Skt. vyāghra=>Old Persian šagr => Persian šēr = Sher and Skt. svar kṣaita, with svara स्वर (Sun) , क्षैत(m. radiant) => hvare — xshaêtahe = radiant sun in Avestan => Khwarshēd (in Middle Persian) => Khurshēd/Khorshīd in Modern Persian.
The earliest record of a banner bearing the lion and the sun goes back to 1423. The flag of the Iranian Safavid Dynasty (1501–1736) is given below.
Emblems of modern India
India’s official emblem is the four-lion capital from the Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath. The inscriptions on the pillars are not about kingship, but rather about moral and religious precepts, and social and animal welfare program.
In this and other similar inscriptions, Ashoka (who ruled from 268 to 232 BCE) refers to himself as “Beloved of the Gods (Devanampiya)” and does not even mention his name. The edicts enjoins “No one shall cause division in the order of monks.”
Every nation has a theory of kingship or state. In nations with a state religion, the state’s purpose is to induce its unbelieving citizens to convert and to vanquish non-believing nations beyond its borders. Modern states are not concerned with religion: their goal is to expand capitalism at the expense of more “primitive modes” of transaction.
Ancient India had its own unique theory of state, but it was different from either the medieval religious state or the modern capitalist one. The ancient king (rāj-an) did not have absolute power and his primary function was to oversee the enforcement of the law. The Mahābhārata says that the king upholds dharma not of any specific classes but of all classes. There was a balance between his authority and that of the mantrī, the minister, and the counselors.
If the power of the king flowed from his physical prowess, weapons and soldiers at his command, the power of the minister flowed from knowledge and renunciation, and the two exercised checks and balances on each other.
A different way to view the uniqueness of Indian polity is to through the dichotomy of the grāma (the settled lands) and the araṇya (the forest) (e.g. RV 10.146), which mirrors dualities like those of puruṣa-prkṛti and mind-body. The aspirant to kingship had to prove himself worthy in the araṇya, in studentship in the ashram, and fight and defeat those who were outside the state.
The sacred [alaukika] power of renunciation was to balance the king’s temporal [laukika] power. This explains how rishis, sants, fakirs, bhikshus, and yogis were respected and feared.
The chakra and the spokes of Prakriti
The sacred power of the minister was represented by the chakra (धर्म चक्र), which symbolizes four or eight directions, or later 12 or, in the Ashoka Chakra, 24 abstract qualities, such as ignorance, conditioning of mind, consciousness, and so on.
The wheel of the Chakravartin चक्रवर्ती King joins the two powers. But it was the exceptional king who, having symbolically conquered time by the extremely arduous and dangerous Aśvamedha Yajña, could claim the use of both the emblems of royal and sacred domains.
Ashoka adopted the older chakra associated with the Sāṅkhya where the universe is 24 spokes (tattvas) of Prakriti around the center, which is Purusha. The chakra thus represents the flow not only of time associated with the state but also the transformations that are part of embodied reality constituted of the tattvas.
The Sarnath pillar is a column surmounted by a capital, which at the top has an inverted bell-shaped lotus, with four 24-spoked dharma wheels with four animals (an elephant, a bull, a horse, a lion). These animals are believed to symbolize different stages of the Buddha’s life. The elephant refers to the dream of his mother Maya in which she sees a white elephant entering her womb; the bull represents desire during the life of the Buddha as a prince; the horse represents departure from the palace; and the lion represents the accomplishment of the Buddhahood.
Flags of other nations
Garuda: Indonesia & Thailand have Vishnu’s vahana on their flag.
Eagle: USA, Austria, Egypt, Iraq, Mexico, Romania, Yemen. Double Eagle: Russia. Lion (s): Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Finland, Sri Lanka. Unicorn and Lion: UK
Modern Indian flag
Early iterations of the modern Indian flag were based on “sacred” motifs. One of the first was square in a red field, with 108 jyotis around the border, with Indra’s Vajra (thunderbolt) in the middle, and the words Vande and Mātaram flanking the Vajra. Another design had three stripes: green, yellow, and red, eight half open lotuses on the top green stripe, Vande Mātaram in blue in the middle yellow stripe, and the sun and moon in white in the bottom stripe.
Those involved in the design of the emblems did not pay attention to the difference between the temporal and the sacred in the Indian tradition.
The Tiraṅgā, the national flag, has three colours: saffron at the top, white at the middle, and green at the bottom, with a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue in the middle.
In the Indian tradition, the sacred, such as the plan of a temple, is represented as the body of the Cosmic Purusha. With the Purusha are associated various chakras that are centers of universal energy. The seven chakra colours, from Mūlādhāra up, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (or white) for Sahasrāra, the crown chakra.
From this perspective, the green of the Indian flag represents emotion at the heart of the Anāhata Chakra, the orange or saffron at the top stands for energy and creativity of the Svādhishthāna Chakra, and white in the middle is the transcendental wisdom of the Sahasrāra Chakra.
