Bhutan
༆བྲུག་ཞི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ
Druk Tsendhen
The Thunder Dragon Kingdom
1953
1966
Gyaldun Dasho Thinley Dorji
Aku Tongmi
👑 Monarchy ✝ God / Faith 🌾 Prosperity |
Key Facts
- 1. The anthem was composed by Aku Tongmi in 1953 and is written in Dzongkha, Bhutan's national language, which uses a Tibetan-derived script.
- 2. Bhutan's anthem references the 'dual system' (chhoe-sid), the centuries-old governance model combining religious and secular authority unique to Bhutanese political philosophy.
- 3. Bhutan did not have television or internet access until 1999, meaning the anthem was primarily heard live or on radio for most of its existence.
Lyrics
བརྔ་ཞི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ལོ༌
བཀར་གསུམ་གོང་མ་རྒྱས་ཤོག༌
རྒྱལ་ཁབ་རིང་ལུགས་མཐུན་ལོ༌
བསྟན་ལགས་བཞིན་དག་མཐུ་ལོ༌
བདེ་སྐྱིད་གི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ལོ༌
ཆོས་སངས་རྒྱས་བཞིན་དག་མཐུ་ལོ༌
བདེ་སྐྱིད་གི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ལོ༌
Translations are non-official and intended to convey meaning, not replace originals
Analysis
EditorialBhutan's anthem reflects the country's deep Buddhist heritage and reverence for the monarchy. Known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon, Bhutan's anthem invokes blessings upon the king and the nation's Buddhist teachings.