Myanmar

The **State Seal of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar** (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်အထိမ်းအမှတ်တံဆိပ်) is used in all official government documents, including publications. For the honor of the State Seal, there are State Seal Law and Principles for the usages.

## Description

* The emblem is with a red background with the golden map of Myanmar in the Center. The map is surrounded by two sprig of *Eugenia,* each with fourteen leaves.
* Beside the branches are the two lions. The left lion is facing to the left and the right lion is facing to the right.
* The Name of the State ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် (Burmese for, REPUBLIC OF THE UNION OF MYANMAR) is expressed on the scroll. The word, ပြည်ထောင်စု (In Burmese for, **Union**) is on the scroll which is under the left lion. The word, သမ္မတ (In Burmese for, **President** or **Republic**) is under the map. The word, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် (In Burmese for, **Myanmar State**) is under the right lion.
* On the top, the large yellow five-pointed star is pointing upward.
* The other part of the seal is surrounded by the traditional floral arabesques.

## Usage

The State seal can be used for the following facts.

* Can be used in Presidential Palace.
* Can be used in the vehicles of the president.
* Can be used in the Central Parliament Buildings (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, Pyithu Hluttaw and Amyotha Hluttaw), the union level government offices, State and Region Hluttaw Buildings, Offices of State and Region Government, Self-Administered Zones and Divisions.
* Can be used in ministries and their child agencies offices, in the courts and the organizations and departments which are allowed to use by the Union Government.
* Can be used in Myanmar Embassies, consulates and one other representations.
* Can be printed on the objects which are used in State Receptions.
* Can be used in bank notes and stamps.
* Can be used by the organizations which are allowed to use by the president.
* Can be used in the official documents of Central Parliaments and State & Region, the Union Government and the ministries, the State, Region and SAZ and SAD Governments, the organizations and department which are allowed by the union government.
* Can be used in State Meetings and Ceremonies.

## History

**Coat of Arms History**

**Current**

1988-2011

1974-1988

1948-1974

The previous state symbol of Burmese monarchs was the green peacock. Late kings of Konbaung Dynasty adopted the circular State Seal bearing a peacock on the sun surrounded by the text: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတံဆိပ်တော်.

After being annexed by the British Raj, the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom replaced the place of State seal. After Burma was separated from India, the green peacock on a yellow was adopted as the national symbol and badge of Burma, in 1939. But the State Seal was still the Coat of Arms of United Kingdom.

The State of Burma, a Japanese puppet state, adopted the circular seal bearing stylized golden peacock above the text တသွေး တသံ တမိန့် was adopted as the State seal in 1943.

The State Seal of Republic of the Union of Burma, approved by the Constituent Assembly in August 1947, contained the Burmese text ပြည်ထောင်စု သမတမြန်မာ နိုင်ငံတော်။ on the banner, which means "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (the same as the text in the current State Seal except the spelling of the word that mean President or Republic: သမတ), as well as three lions. Additionally, there was a circle surrounding the map of the country containing Verse 194 of the Buddhavagga in the Dhammapada in Pali: သမဂ္ဂါနံ တပေါ သုခေါ (samaggānaṃ tapo sukho), which translates to "Unity is the way to pleasure." It was adopted at the independence of the country on 4 January 1948.

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 ears of paddy. The words on the banner were also changed to ပြည်ထောင်စု ဆိုရှယ်လစ်သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်, which translates "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma".

On 19 October 1988, the State Law and Order Restoration Council enacted a law which replaces the expression "Socialist Republic of the Union of Myanmar" with the expression "Union of Myanmar". The State Seal was modified as the country name in State Seal Law had been replaced: the words ဆိုရှယ်လစ်သမ္မတ ("Socialist Republic") were removed.

In 2008, the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar for Burma was approved by a referendum. In this new constitution, changes have been made to the State Seal. The new State Seal uses the colours red and gold/yellow. Also, the gear wheel and paddy ears have been removed and replaced with two sprigs of *Eugenia* and the words on the ribbon have been changed to ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် which translates "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" . The new Laws and Principles for State Seal were passed on 21 October 2010 (but were not enforced immediately) and the new State Seal was displayed on the television on that day's afternoon. But the new state seal had not been adopted yet until 2011. It was adopted on the day the 2008 Constitution came into force, on 31 January 2011.