The Brunei crest with the lions

Slightly more than a week ago, I wrote a short entry about our national crest. In the side box, there was this comment:

Decendent of Dato Godam: Mr. BR, I've seen the Brunei national crest being added with Lion. But now its being replaced by that Ajai(hand). Can u elaborate on that please?

I remembered too there was something which had the lion replacing the hands and it took me a while to remember where I saw it. Then it hit me today. It was on this chair and on this throne.

This is a cropped photo of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah taken in 1968 during his coronation as the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam. If you look closely, you can see the crest with the lions on both sides of the crest on top of the seat that His Majesty is sitting on.

If I go wider with this photograph, the crest too with the lions is at the centre on top of the throne. This throne is still used at the Istana in one of the halls. There is a model of it somewhere in the Royal Regalia Museum in the capital.

I cannot answer that second question as to why and when it changed. That would be interesting. My personal answer is that the crest was always with the hands and that was widely used after the constitution. The throne was especially designed and that crest with the lions was only meant for this throne and therefore the crest was not changed at all.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Once I met a highly-ranked person from Brunei History Center and told me that the lions were removed due to religious concern. As in Islam rulings no complete picture or statue of any animals or human beings are allowed to be created and displayed.

This might also be applied to Churchill's statue removal.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:57:00 PM
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