Prayer Flag

For the religious Tibetans, prayer flag is a way to devote their reverence to gods who know their wishes and bring them good luck and prosperity. Hence, one may come across various colorful prayer flags wherever one goes in Tibet, as well as other areas where there are high concentration of Tibetans, such as the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, Gansu and even some neighboring countries. They are either stuck or hung on the roofs and front gates of houses and temples, road junctions, river banks, mountains, branches, stupas, mani stones and other holy places.
Prayer flags are usually made of cloths, voiles, silks or papers, the most common of which is cloth. They are usually cut in the shapes of rectangle, square, triangle and umbrella and dyed with five meaningful colors of white, yellow, red, blue and green. These represent cloud, earth, fire, sky and river respectively. The patterns on the flags are mainly a horse carrying the three jewels of Buddhism, namely Buddha, Dharma and Sangha on the back, surrounded by four animals of dragon, tiger, lion and roc. These five auspicious animals symbolize the perfection of five components of human life, namely soul, wealth, body, destiny and vitality. Mantras, pictures of Buddha and eight mascots of Tibet are often included. These pictures are usually printed from moulds made from woods, stones or sometimes metals. For instance, the natural and wild pictures in northern Tibet are printed directly from the mani stones.

The whole design of the prayer flags symbolizes the harmony of heaven, earth, man and animals. Hence, they are usually hung during festivals and joyous occasions. In every Tibetan New Year, the old flags will be replaced with new ones. On the other hand, they are also used in the sky burial  stage to help delivering the soul of the deceased to the Heaven. When a living Buddha harvests his nirvana, the prayer flags on the roofs of every house will be slanted to send grief and memorial to the deceased. Pilgrims making their pilgrimage deep in the forests and mountains also often use them to pray for safety or blessing from Buddha.
The most impressive usage of prayer flags lies in the forest at the banks of Jinsha River. Large prayer flags are arranged till they look like ladders leading to heaven. They even sound like monks reciting the sutra when strong winds blow. Hence, it is said that when prayer flags are being blown by the wind once, it can achieve the same effect of monk reciting the sutras once. Prayer flags are often placed with mani stones which are considered sacred. So it is advisable for tourists to add some stones to the mani It is thus considered a taboo for any casual removal of such stones or behaving in a profane manner at such a venue.