Victory banner
A cylindrical banner on a pole, one of the eight auspicious symbols. It stands for the victory of the Buddha's teaching over ignorance, death and every obstacle.
Meaning
The Tibetan Language Institute's guide names what the teaching defeats: death, ignorance, disharmony and all the negativities of this world. In Lama Zopa Rinpoche's translation of his teacher Trijang Dorje Chang's explanation, the banner is for one's activities not to be "stepped upon by obstacles or disharmonious conditions", and for the Buddha's teachings to win out over the maras.
Origin and history
The Sanskrit name is dhvaja, a standard or banner. L. Austine Waddell, writing in 1895, thought the Tibetan name for prayer-flag poles came from the same word, which the early Indian Buddhists used for the votive pillars they offered at stupas. Alice Getty (1914) glossed the banner among the eight as "erected on the summit of the palace of salvation".
On monastery roofs
The roofs of Tibetan monasteries are often decorated with victory banners of different shapes and sizes. Getty describes them as cylinders covered in black yak hair striped across with white, and Waddell saw gilt domes on temple roofs that stood for the banner of victory and the royal umbrella.
Read next
- Next in Buddhist symbolsUnalomeThe unalome (Thai อุณาโลม, unalom) is a Thai sacred sign: a line that curls into a spiral and then runs straight up. It is the ūrṇā, the curl of white hair between the Buddha’s eyebrows, and in Thai yantra it is the sign of the enlightenment of an arahant.
- The same shape in Diwali symbolsFireworksFireworks and firecrackers are a later addition to Diwali, a festival of lamps far older than gunpowder in India. Since 2017 India’s courts have restricted them in and around Delhi because of the smog.
See also
Dharmachakra, Ensō, Bodhi leaf, Triratna, Stupa, Parasol.
Sources
- The Eight Auspicious Symbols, Tibetan Language Institute, quoting Robert Beer, The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, Victory Banner
- The Eight Auspicious Signs, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (translator), Mandala, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, no. 7
- Eight Auspicious Symbols (gallery text, illustration after Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings), Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
- The Eight Auspicious Symbols, Tibetan Monks’ Residency, Office of Cultural Affairs, Salisbury University
- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, L. Austine Waddell, 1895, W. H. Allen, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy)
- The Gods of Northern Buddhism, Alice Getty, with an introduction by J. Deniker, 1914, Clarendon Press, Oxford (Internet Archive)
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 24, 2026. How we research
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