National symbols of India

Where

Sarnath Museum, near Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

When

About 250 BCE; dug up in 1904 to 1905

Who

Made for the Mauryan emperor Ashoka

Made with

One block of polished Chunar sandstone

A capital is the carved top of a pillar. This one crowned a pillar Ashoka set up at Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Four lions sit back to back on a round slab (the abacus), which is carved with an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion, separated by wheels. Below it is an upside-down, bell-shaped lotus. The whole piece is about 2.1 metres tall, and its glassy shine is the famous Mauryan polish.

When

Adopted on 26 January 1950

Who

Drawn for the Constitution by Dinanath Bhargava, a student of Nandalal Bose

The emblem shows the Lion Capital from the side, so only three lions can be seen. The wheel (the Dharma Chakra) is in the middle of the base, with a bull on the right and a galloping horse on the left; the lotus is left out. Below it, in Devanagari, is the motto Satyameva Jayate, "Truth alone triumphs", a line from the Mundaka Upanishad. Its use is controlled by a law, the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005, so companies and private people cannot put it on their products or letterheads.

When

Adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947

Three equal stripes: saffron at the top, white in the middle and green at the bottom. In the centre of the white stripe is a navy blue wheel, the Ashoka Chakra, with 24 spokes, taken from the wheel on the Sarnath Lion Capital. The width of the flag to its length is 2:3, so a flag 2 metres high is 3 metres long.

Where

From Andhra Pradesh

When

1876 to 1963

A freedom fighter who showed Mahatma Gandhi a flag design at the Congress meeting in Vijayawada (then Bezwada) in 1921. Gandhi asked for changes, including a white stripe, and a spinning wheel (charkha) was placed in the middle. In 1947 the Constituent Assembly kept the three colours but swapped the charkha for the Ashoka Chakra. India Post honoured him with this stamp in 2009.

When

2002; amended in December 2021 and July 2022

The Flag Code of India, 2002 sets the rules for flying and showing the flag, along with a 1971 law against insulting it. Until 2021 flags had to be hand-spun, hand-woven khadi. An amendment in December 2021 allowed machine-made flags and polyester, and one in July 2022 let people fly the flag at home by day and by night, for the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign of the 75th year of independence. These were the rules as of October 2026.

When

Adopted on 24 January 1950; first sung on 27 December 1911

Who

Words and music by Rabindranath Tagore

The anthem is the first stanza of a longer song Tagore wrote in Bengali. It was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1911, and the Constituent Assembly adopted it on 24 January 1950. The full anthem takes about 52 seconds; a short version of its first and last lines takes about 20 seconds. Tagore also wrote Bangladesh's national anthem, Amar Shonar Bangla.

When

Published in 1882 in the novel Anandamath; adopted on 24 January 1950

Who

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

A hymn to the motherland, written in Sanskrit and Bengali, which first appeared in Bankim's Bengali novel Anandamath (1882). It became the rallying cry of the freedom struggle, and it has equal status with the anthem. In January 2026, during the song's 150th-anniversary year, the Home Ministry ordered that all six stanzas (about 3 minutes 10 seconds) be sung at official events, before the anthem when both are performed.

When

In official use since 22 March 1957

A solar calendar of 365 days that counts years in the Saka era, which began in 78 CE, so Saka years run 78 behind the Common Era (2026 is mostly Saka 1948). Its first month is Chaitra, and 1 Chaitra falls on 22 March (21 March in a leap year). The Gazette of India, All India Radio news and government calendars use it alongside the Gregorian calendar.

When

Chosen in the early 1970s; Project Tiger began in April 1973

The Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) took the place of the lion as India's national animal, partly because tigers live across most of India while wild lions survive only in Gujarat. Their numbers had fallen so far that the government started Project Tiger in April 1973 to protect them in tiger reserves.

When

Chosen in 1963

The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is native to the subcontinent. The male has a glossy blue neck, a fan-shaped crest and a train of about 200 long feathers with eye spots, which he spreads in his courtship dance; the female is brown and has no train. In 2011 the Environment Ministry formally notified the tiger as the national animal and the peacock as the national bird.

When

Declared on 22 October 2010

The Environment Ministry declared the elephant India's national heritage animal in October 2010, on the advice of an Elephant Task Force. The aim was to give elephants the same protection effort that the tiger gets. India is home to most of the world's wild Asian elephants.

When

Declared on 5 October 2009; notified in May 2010

A freshwater dolphin of the Ganga and Brahmaputra river systems. It is almost blind and finds its food by echoes, and its long beak is lined with teeth. The Prime Minister announced it as the national aquatic animal at the first meeting of the National Ganga River Basin Authority in 2009, because a river with dolphins is a healthy river. It is an endangered species.

When

Declared on 4 November 2008

The Ganga was declared India's national river at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2008, which also set up an authority to clean it up. It rises in the Himalayas at the Gangotri glacier and flows across the northern plains to the Bay of Bengal, and hundreds of millions of people live in its basin.

The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) grows in muddy ponds yet flowers clean, so in Indian art and religion it stands for purity. It is the base of the Sarnath Lion Capital and appears on many coins and seals. Textbooks and exams call it the national flower, but in July 2019 the government told the Rajya Sabha that no notification has ever made it one.

The Indian banyan (Ficus benghalensis) drops roots from its branches that grow into new trunks, so one tree can spread into what looks like a forest. The Great Banyan in the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanic Garden near Kolkata, shown here, is more than 250 years old. Like the lotus, it is on school lists but on no government notification.

The mango (Mangifera indica) has been grown in India for thousands of years, and India grows more mangoes than any other country, in hundreds of varieties such as this Alphonso (hapus). It is listed as the national fruit in textbooks, but as with the lotus and the banyan, no government notification for it has been found.