A Hindu God on Buddhist and Modern State Emblems

Garuda's reach is one of the plainer measures of how far Indian religion spread through Southeast Asia. He is a protective figure in Buddhism as well as Hinduism, and he appears today on the national emblems of Indonesia and Thailand and gives his name to Indonesia's national airline, in countries whose populations are now largely Muslim and Buddhist, so that the eagle of Vishnu survives as a state symbol long after the religious context that produced him changed. In Bali, where Hinduism remains the majority faith, Garuda is a living presence in temple art and dance. The image of the divine bird locked in eternal struggle with the serpent, sky against underworld, sun against water, is among the most widespread in Asian religious art.

Indonesia's national emblem, adopted in 1950 and known as Garuda Pancasila, shows the bird bearing on its chest a shield inscribed with the country's five founding principles, while Thailand has used a version of Garuda, known there as Phra Khrut Pha, as the seal of royal and governmental authority since the early Chakri dynasty in the late eighteenth century, stamped on official documents and government buildings across the country. Both usages keep Vishnu's mount at the very centre of modern national symbolism in two of the countries where Hindu-Buddhist civilisation once flourished most richly, long after the state religion of each had become predominantly Muslim or Buddhist respectively.