Wind Horse: the Lungta Motif of the Tibetan Prayer Flags

The Wind Horse is a pictorial motif from the world of Tibetan Buddhism. Its Tibetan name is Lungta, which can be translated as Wind Horse.

The Wind Horse is depicted as a horse carrying a jewel or a precious stone on its back. The horse often appears striding or leaping, in a posture of movement.

The Wind Horse is above all the central motif of Tibetan prayer flags. On most of these flags the Wind Horse stands in the middle, surrounded by texts and further signs.

The Wind Horse stands for a person’s favourable life force. In Tibetan, this life force is denoted by the same word, Lungta, as the Wind Horse itself.

At the same time the Wind Horse stands for the carrying of blessing and prayer. As the wind moves the flag, so it is to carry the blessing written on it in all directions.

In religious studies the Wind Horse is a good example of a symbol of fortune that is closely bound to a carrying medium. The motif and the prayer flag belong together.

The Wind Horse motif has a long history, and its roots reach back into the period before Buddhism. Several strands come together in it.

The horse was a highly valued animal in the world of the Central Asian peoples. It stood for speed, for strength and for prosperity. This esteem for the horse is a first strand.

In the older religious world of Tibet before Buddhism there were notions of a personal life force and of a person’s good fortune. This notion too flowed into the Wind Horse.

Buddhism took up the motif and gave it its developed form. The horse with the jewel on its back was joined with Buddhist signs and texts.

In this way the Wind Horse arose as it is known today. It unites the old esteem for the horse, the notion of the life force and the Buddhist interpretation.

The origin of the Wind Horse thus shows a widespread interplay. An old animal motif and an older notion of the life force were taken up by Buddhism and recast.

The Wind Horse is inseparably bound to the Tibetan prayer flags. On the greatest number of these flags the Wind Horse is the dominant motif.

The prayer flags are small, mostly square cloths strung along cords. They are hung at high-lying places, at passes, on bridges and on roofs.

On the individual flag the Wind Horse stands in the middle. In the four corners four further animals often appear, surrounding and complementing the Wind Horse.

The remaining space of the flag is filled with texts, prayers and mantras. The Wind Horse in the middle and the surrounding texts together form the image of the flag.

The prayer flags are made in various colours. Often the colours follow a fixed sequence linked with the basic elements of the world.

The Wind Horse and the prayer flag thus belong closely together. The Wind Horse is the heart of the flag, and the flag is the most important place in which the Wind Horse appears.

The form of the Wind Horse is precisely defined. It is a horse carrying a jewel on its back, and every part of this form has a meaning.

The horse itself stands for speed and for movement. It is the animal that carries swiftly and far. This quality makes it suited to conveying blessing and prayer.

On its back the horse carries a jewel, often in the form of glowing precious stones or a flaming gem. This jewel stands for the precious gifts that the Wind Horse brings.

The jewel is understood as a wish-fulfilling gem. It is an image for the fulfilment of wishes, for well-being and for the gifts of the teaching.

The Wind Horse thus unites two images. The horse is the swift carrier, the jewel is the precious gift. Together they form the image of a messenger that brings blessing and good fortune.

The four animals in the corners of the flag complement this image. They stand for further favourable powers and surround the Wind Horse as the centre of the depiction.

The Tibetan word Lungta denotes not only the pictorial motif of the Wind Horse. It also names a notion of a person’s favourable life force.

In the Tibetan conception every person possesses a kind of inner life force or a potential for good fortune. This Lungta can be strong or weak and can change.

If a person’s Lungta is strong, their undertakings succeed and fortune is favourable to them. If it is weak, obstacles and misfortune accumulate.

The Wind Horse on the prayer flag is an image of this life force. The hanging of the flag and the fluttering of the Wind Horse are meant to strengthen and raise a person’s Lungta.

The word Lungta thus connects the image and the notion. The Wind Horse is the visible image for an invisible life force that bears the same name.

This twofold meaning makes the Wind Horse a dense sign. Whoever hangs a Wind Horse flag tends, in the image, to the Wind Horse and at the same time to their own favourable life force.

With the Wind Horse the wind is not merely a part of the name. The wind has its own important significance for the working of the prayer flags.

The prayer flags are deliberately hung at windy places, at passes, on heights and at bridges. There the wind moves the flags without ceasing.

According to the Tibetan conception the blowing wind carries the blessing and the prayers of the flag with it. Each time the wind moves the flag, its blessing is, as it were, spread abroad.

In this way the blessing reaches beyond the flag into the wide world. The wind carries it across the land, to the people, to the beings and in all directions.

In this image the Wind Horse is the messenger. Like a swift horse it carries, borne by the wind, the blessing and the prayers out into the world.

The wind thus makes the prayer flag an effective sign. The flag works not through its mere existence, but in that the wind moves it and spreads its blessing.

The Wind Horse belongs to the symbols of fortune. Its protective meaning is to be understood from this position as a sign of fortune and blessing.

The Wind Horse does not, in the narrower sense, ward off an evil. It is not a frightening image and not a warding amulet. Its working is that of a favourable, blessing-bringing sign.

The protection that proceeds from the Wind Horse is thus a protection through the good. By strengthening the life force and spreading blessing, it is meant to steer life in a favourable direction.

A strong Lungta is moreover regarded as a protection against obstacles and against misfortune. Whoever is strengthened in their life force is meant to be less affected by harmful influences.

The Wind Horse thus protects by furthering good fortune and the life force. It withdraws life, as it were, from the realm of misfortune by strengthening what is favourable.

The Wind Horse is thus a good example of protection through good fortune. Not the warding off of an evil, but the furthering of the favourable life force is here the means of protection.

The Wind Horse unfolds its meaning above all in the hanging of the prayer flags. In Tibetan Buddhism this hanging follows certain customs.

Prayer flags are hung on many occasions, at the Tibetan New Year festival, before an undertaking, in illness or at the beginning of a new stage of life.

For the hanging, favourable days are sometimes chosen. The Tibetan tradition knows calculations according to which certain days are better suited for the hanging than others.

The flags are placed at high-lying, windy places, so that the wind moves them strongly. Over time they fade and are bleached by the weather.

The fading is not seen as decay. It is regarded as a sign that the wind has gradually spread the blessing of the flag. Faded flags are supplemented with new ones.

The hanging of the flags thus shows that the Wind Horse is a living, used sign. It works not in a museum, but in the wind, at the high places of the Tibetan landscape.

The Wind Horse is to this day extraordinarily present in Tibetan Buddhism. The prayer flags with the Wind Horse are a familiar sight in the lands of Tibetan Buddhism.

At passes, at bridges, on roofs and at holy places the flags still flutter in the wind. The hanging of new flags has remained a living, cultivated custom.

Beyond the Tibetan world the prayer flags with the Wind Horse have become a widely known image. With the interest in Tibetan Buddhism they have found wide circulation.

In this wider circulation, prayer flags are also hung in the West and used as decoration. The precise meaning of the Wind Horse then sometimes recedes into the background.

In this use the Wind Horse is often understood in a general way as a sign of peace, of good fortune or of Tibetan culture. Its precise embedding can then be lost.

At its core, however, the Wind Horse remains what it always was, the Lungta of the prayer flags, which stands for the favourable life force and carries the blessing out into the wide world on the wind.