History and Science of Nepali Flag
All national flags of the world are rectangular. Except that of one county, our country (Nepal). How did our flag become the only distinctive? double triangular flag? And when was it created? Also, who was it that designed the flag?
To know about Nepal’s flag, we need to understand the story of the ‘age of sail’ first. Between 1600 and 1800 AD, ships in Europe were so developed that they were dominant in all sectors. This is called the age of sail. The use of a national flag wasn’t so popular in European countries until the age of sail. But now, one problem occurred. How to identify a distant ship? What if people mistakenly fire at their own country’s ship? Because of this reason, the trend of using the national flag increased suddenly in European countries. And simply because a rectangular flag catches more of the sailing wind, the flags were mostly rectangular. And of course, these countries traveled to different places and began colonization. Before this, most Asian countries including the Hindus generally used triangular flags. But in all those places which got colonized by the Europeans, the flags were turned rectangular. And here’s the point. Nepal was never colonized. Hence, Nepal’s flag still is similar to what it was before the age of sail.
Let’s ask now, if so, who designed the flag and when was that done? The answer is very simple…No one knows it. If you ask about the British flag, it was designed in 1606 AD by King James VI. India’s flag was designed by Pingali Venkaiyya in 1931. But Nepal’s flag? No one knows. If we look at our history there have been many rulers of this land… but the flag always remained the same. However, there’s one widespread belief that Prithivi Narayan Shah (17th century AD) started it, which most probably is wrong. Changunarayan Temple, which was built long before Prithivi Narayan Shah has a metal-made flag. According to this, Nepal’s flag should be thousands of years older. Moreover, it is claimed that this flag was created during the Vedic era. However, some minor changes have been made to it time and again. Like, before the constitution of 1962 A.D. was made, Nepal’s flag used to contain faces. Those faces were removed by the constitution. Now, let’s move on to what the flag means. And here start, major confusion. There are many theories relating to its meaning.
Let’s take a look!
Theory 1
The shape of the flag is a representation of the Himalayas.
Theory 2
The two triangles of the flag represent the Hindu and Buddhist religions.
Theory 3
Sun represents the ‘Surya (solar)’ clan’s kings and Moon represents the ‘Chandra (lunar)’ clan’s kings.
Theory 4
Let’s stop here.
There are many theories like this. And they all seem fair. But due to the same reason, we cannot be sure about any of them. We all know the mainstream theory- Red represents bravery, blue represents peace and the Sun, Moon mean: Till there are Sun and the Moon in the sky, there will be the country of Nepal in this Earth. But, these all are modern theories. If we consider the flag to be ancient, we also have to consider it’s meaning to be ancient. Isn’t it so? There’s one that relates to the Vedic era. And it’s very interesting.
Let’s take a look!
This is a ‘Satkon ‘. This has a big importance in Vedic ‘Yantras’. And there’s a reason for that. The up-pointing triangle of ‘Satkon’ represents the fire element. The down-pointing triangle represents the water element. If we look into the life system of Earth water goes up as a vapor first, then falls down when it cools. Using this water and sun rays, plants make food. And then the whole ecosystem works. Using these two triangles of the ‘Satkon’ a flag was constructed in the Vedic era. which exists today as the national flag of Nepal. To distinguish the triangles representing water and fire element, Sun and Moon were used as symbols. In short, our flag is- a representation of the whole life system in the universe.
