State Seal of Myanmar
| State Seal of Myanmar | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Details | |
| Armiger | Republic of the Union of Myanmar |
| Adopted | 2008 |
| Crest | Gold star |
| Supporters | Chinthe |
The State Seal of Myanmar (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်အထိမ်းအမှတ်တံဆိပ်) is used in all official government documents, including publications.
Description
The coat of arms has two chinthe (mythical lions) facing opposite one another, and at its centre is a map of Burma. The coat of arms is surrounded by traditional Burmese flower designs and a star at its top. The new State Seal, as stipulated by Chapter XIII of the 2008 Constitution, was adopted in the 2008 Burmese constitutional referendum.
History
The original coat of arms contained the Burmese text ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် on the banner, which translates "Union of Burma", as well as three chinthe (the chinthe at the top was replaced by a star). Additionally, the cogwheel was a circle surrounded by Verse 194 of the Buddhavagga in the Dhammapada in Pali: သမဂ္ဂါနံ တပေါ သုခေါ (samagganam tapo sukho), which translates to "happiness through harmony" or "well-being through unity."
However, during Ne Win's Socialist rule, the 1974 Constitution adopted a new state seal with the following changes: the coat of arms was modified to accommodate Socialist symbols: a cogwheel, a star at the top, and dual olive wreaths.[1] The words on the banner were also changed to ပြည်ထောင်စု ဆိုရှယ်လစ်သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်, which translates "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma." In 1988, when the State Law and Order Restoration Council staged a coup, the words ဆိုရှယ်လစ်သမ္မတ ("Socialist Republic") were removed.
The previous state symbol of Burmese monarchs was the green peacock. The use of the green peacock was continued during British colonial times and the State of Burma. The peacock also featured on Burmese rupees as a national symbol.
New state seal
In 2008 a new constitution for Burma was adopted in a controversial referendum. In this new constitution, changes have been made to the coat of arms. The new coat of arms removes the colours blue and dark gold/orange and instead just uses the colours red and gold/yellow. Also, the cogwheel has been removed and replaced with laurel or olive branches and the words on the central portion of the scroll have been changed to ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်.[2]
Gallery
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The green peacock was a former symbol of state
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The coat of arms of the Union of Burma (1948-1974)
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The coat of arms of Burma during the Socialist period (1974-2008)
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Emblem of the Myanmar Air Force
See also
References
- ↑ 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma, Chapter XIV.
- ↑ http://missions.itu.int/~myanmar/pressrelease_PMGev/NationalConstitution(Draft)2008.pdf
