High Quality Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Flags

Prayer Flags are inscribed with auspicious symbols, invocations, prayers, and mantras.
Tibetan Buddhists for centuries have planted these flags outside their homes and places of
spiritual practice for the wind to carry the beneficent vibrations across the countryside.
Prayer flags are said to bring happiness, long life and prosperity to the flag planter and
those in the vicinity. Dharma prints bear traditional Buddhist symbols, protectors and
enlightened beings. As the Buddhist spiritual approach is non-theistic, the elements of
Tantric iconography do not stand for external beings, but represent aspects of enlightened
mind i.e. compassion, perfect action, fearlessness, etc. Displayed with respect, Dharma
prints impart a feeling of harmony and bring to mind the precious teachings.

The prayer flag tradition is ancient, dating back thousands of years in India and to the
shamanistic Bon tradition of pre-Buddhist Tibet. Bonpo priests used solid colored cloth
flags, perhaps with their magical symbols, to balance the elements both internally and
externally. The 5 colors of prayer flags represent the 5 basic elements: yellow-earth, green
water, red-fire, white-air, blue-space. Balancing these elements externally brings harmony
to the environment. Balancing the elements internally brings health to the body and the
mind.

Buddhists added their own texts to increase the power of the flags. There are ancient
symbols, prayers and mantras for generating compassion, health, wish fulfillment, and for
overcoming diseases, natural disasters and other obstacles. In this present dark-age
disharmony reigns and the elements are way out of balance. The earth needs healing like
never before. Prayer flags moving in the wind generate a natural positive energy. Acting on
a spiritual level the emanating vibrations protect from harm and bring harmony to
everything touched by the wind.
Pole Flags and Prayer Flags on Ropes
In the year of the Metal Dragon (2000 AD) we began printing and
sewing traditional Tibetan prayer flags in Kathmandu, Nepal.
With our friends - Kazi and his family - we are collaborating on a
printing studio - Radiant Heart East. Using woodblocks carved in
their mountain village in Yolmo we are printing prayer flags in
the traditional way. We feel that these are probably the best
woodblock printed flags available in the world today. We
searched for several years before choosing the collection of
woodblocks for this series of prayer flags.
Prayer Flags on Poles
At Radiant Heart East we make tall flags (Dar Cho) - to be displayed on poles. The flags
come in the traditional 5 colors with borders and "tongues" (streamers). They have durable
rope ties for securing to a pole. We have decided to print on only on good quality cotton
cloth. Most prayer flags availible today are printed on polyester. The cotton flags have
richer colors and compare favorably with the polyester in terms of durability and color
fastness. All the pole flags and their tongues are hemmed for durability. for information on
erecting flag poles see the "Flag Poles" link in the navigation buttons on the left.
Prayer Flags on Ropes
Besides the high quality sets of flags we print in our western studio (the PF series) we also
offer horizontal displays of more economical prayer flags printed in our Kathmandu studio.
They come presewn on rope in sets of five, ten or twenty-five.
Deity Prints
With the exception of the Eight Aspects of Guru Rinpoche (D-6) and Milarepa (D-7) all the prints in
our Deity Print collection were designed specifically for silk screen printing from original drawings
by Timothy Clark, the founder of Radiant Heart Studios. Our Deity Prints are screen printed on high
quality 100% cotton cloth with non-toxic waterproof textile paints. They are cut, printed and ironed
in our studio in Boise, Idaho by a Tibetan couple, Sonam Wangdu and Tsering Ongmo.

We offer these works of art in the less expensive unhemmed print (which looks just fine)
and prints with 2" double-folded cloth borders (which looks even better). The prints are
suitable to be hung indoors or out using Blu-Tack (pressure sensitive adhesive) or thumb
tacks.

Deity is not really the best term describing the buddhas, bodhisattvas and other
enlightened beings depicted in these prints. Shakyamuni Buddha, Guru Rinpoche
(Padmasambhava) and Milarepa are fully awakened human beings. Avalokiteshvara
(Chenrezigs), White Tara and Green Tara are Wisdom-Beings; embodiments of
Compassion, one of the three main aspects enlightened minds (wisdom and power being
the other two main aspects).









Traditional Prayer Flags
The Tibetan prayer flags in this category are screen printed with non-toxic waterproof inks
by Tibetans in our Boise, Idaho studio. The prints are very detailed, clear and accurate. The
cloth is high quality 100% cotton purchased directly from fabric mills in Maryland. Most of
the designs below are available individually on white cloth or in sets of 5 colors. We also
offer nicely finished prints on white fabric with 2" double-folded colored cloth borders.
We have been collecting, cataloging, redrawing and translating traditional Tibetan prayer
flags since 1975. The greatest care is taken to insure accuracy in the text and symbols. It is
our intention to provide at least one perfect prayer flag design in each of the major
categories of traditional flags. To date we have flags in 8 categories out of approximately 15
categories that weve discovered. Locating, redrawing and editing ancient prayer flags is a
long process. We have been working with Acharya Lama Dawa Chhodak for nearly 30 years
on this labor of love. We are also working on English translations of all our traditional flags.
So far we have completed two. The English versions of the Large Wind Horse and the Praise
to the 21 Taras are nearly identical in size and images to the Tibetan versions only the text
is different. All of the prayer flags in this section of the website are in Tibetan. The
calligraphy was done by various Nyingma Lamas, Bhutanese monks and a Tibetan script
computer program that we like. See the English Translated Prayer Flags section if you are
interested in translated flags.




For more information please visit
http://www.prayerflags.com