Why Leave Cloth to Rot in the Wind? Fading Is the Point

The flags are rectangles of coloured cotton or silk, printed from carved wooden blocks with text and images, and strung in sequence along a line. The central image on most is a horse carrying a jewel, which is why the common name for them in Tibetan refers to a wind horse. Text surrounds that image, consisting of mantras, prayers and auspicious formulas, frequently repeated many times across the cloth. Smaller images occupy the corners. The colours run in a fixed order of blue, white, red, green and yellow, representing sky, air, fire, water and earth, and the sequence is repeated along the string rather than varied.

The reasoning attached to them is specific rather than vague:

• •Wind passing over the printed text carries its blessing outwards
• •The benefit is directed to all beings rather than to the person who hung them
• •Fading of the ink indicates the prayers have been carried away
• •Disintegration of the cloth completes the process rather than spoiling it
• •New flags are hung alongside or over the old rather than replacing them
• •Burning worn flags is the correct disposal where they must be removed

Placement follows rules that reflect the mechanism. Flags go where the wind is strongest and where they are highest, which is why passes, ridges, rooftops, bridges and the approaches to monasteries are the standard sites, and why a Himalayan pass is marked by them from a considerable distance. They should be hung on auspicious days determined by the lunar calendar, with the period around the new year being the principal occasion, and hanging them on an inauspicious day is held to bring the opposite of the intended result. They should not touch the ground. Once hung they are not taken down deliberately except to be replaced and burnt.

Two distinct forms exist and confusing them is common. Horizontal strings are hung between two points, along a ridge, across a bridge or between buildings, with the flags arranged as a sequence of small rectangles and the colours running in order. Vertical arrangements attach larger flags to a single pole set upright in the ground, frequently outside a house or at a shrine, and these carry different imagery and are commonly white. The vertical form is associated with particular purposes including the removal of obstacles and the benefit of a named person, and enormous numbers of poles cluster at some sites. The horizontal form is what most visitors photograph and what the popular image refers to.

The practice has met modern volumes and produced genuine difficulties. Tourism has multiplied the quantity hung at popular sites enormously, with trekking routes and base camps carrying accumulations far beyond anything traditional, and the cloth is now frequently synthetic and printed with chemical inks that do not degrade as cotton and vegetable ink did. The result is plastic waste accumulating in fragile high-altitude environments where nothing decays quickly, and clean-up expeditions have removed substantial quantities from popular peaks and passes. Local authorities and monasteries have issued guidance encouraging natural materials and discouraging indiscriminate hanging, which sits awkwardly against a practice whose whole logic is that more is better.

Printed cloth strung where the wind is strongest carries its text outwards to all beings, so fading and disintegration mark the process working rather than failing. Colours run in a fixed sequence representing the elements, and the central image is a horse carrying a jewel. Flags are hung on auspicious days, never taken down except to be burnt, and synthetic cloth at tourist volumes has created a real waste problem.