"Sayaun Thunga Phulka" is younger than a lot of people expect for a national anthem: Nepal adopted it in 2007, replacing a song that had praised the monarchy for decades. That timing isn't a coincidence. The anthem's history is really the story of Nepal reimagining what it wanted to say about itself, right as the country itself was being reimagined.
What came before it
Before 2007, Nepal's national anthem was "Rastriya Gaan," commonly known by its opening words "Shriman Gambhir," a song that directly praised the reigning king. That made sense for most of Nepal's modern history: the country was a Hindu kingdom, and the monarch was constitutionally central to national identity. But by the mid-2000s, Nepal was in the middle of a Maoist insurgency and a broader political movement pushing toward a more inclusive, republican model of government. An anthem built entirely around praising one royal family no longer fit the country most Nepalis were trying to build.
The tune itself was older than its time as anthem: composed by Bakhat Bahadur Budhapirthi in 1899, with lyrics added by Chakrapani Chalise in 1924. It wasn't formally adopted as the Kingdom of Nepal's national anthem until 16 December 1962. Its title translates roughly to "Thee May Glory Crown, Courageous Sovereign," and true to that title, the retained verse was a direct homage to the monarch, a second verse existed but stayed largely unknown to the public. Parliament discontinued it as national anthem on 19 May 2006, in the same wave of reforms that stripped the monarchy of most of its powers, clearing the way for "Sayaun Thunga Phulka" the following year.
Who wrote the words and music
The interim legislature adopted new lyrics written by Pradeep Kumar Rai, better known by his pen name Byakul Maila, with music composed by Amber Gurung, a respected Nepali musician and composer. The new anthem dropped any reference to a monarch entirely and reoriented itself around the land, its people and their diversity, a deliberate and fairly dramatic shift for a country's most symbolically loaded piece of music.
What the lyrics actually say
The anthem's title itself is part of the message: "Sayaun Thunga Phulka" translates roughly to "woven from hundreds of flowers," an image of a single garland made from many different blossoms. The opening lines make the metaphor explicit:
"Sayaun thunga phulka hami, euta mala Nepali, sarbabhaum bhai failiyeka, Mechi-Mahakali." (We are a hundred flowers strung into one garland of Nepalis, spread sovereign from the Mechi to the Mahakali.)
Mechi and Mahakali are the two rivers that mark Nepal's easternmost and westernmost borders, so the line is literally describing the country's full geographic span while using the flower garland as a metaphor for national unity built from diversity, rather than uniformity. Later lines continue in the same register, describing Nepal as a land of knowledge and peace stretching across the Tarai plains, the hills and the Himalayas, and explicitly naming the country's plural mix of ethnicities, languages, religions and cultures as a source of collective strength rather than a challenge to manage.
How the new anthem was actually chosen
Replacing a national anthem isn't a decision one person gets to make alone, and Nepal's interim legislature handled it through a formal selection process rather than simply commissioning one writer directly. A national committee solicited and reviewed submissions for new anthem lyrics and music from across the country, evaluating them against the practical and symbolic requirements of a piece meant to represent every citizen rather than a single community, region or political faction. Byakul Maila's lyrics and Amber Gurung's composition were selected from that process and formally adopted by the government in 2007, ahead of the monarchy's abolition the following year.
Why the shift in tone matters
It's worth sitting with how unusual this is as a piece of state symbolism. A lot of national anthems, understandably, center the state itself, its founding myths, its rulers, its military. Nepal's current anthem does almost none of that. It's built around geography, cultural plurality and collective identity, more a description of the country's people than a declaration about its government. That reflects the broader arc Nepal was on in 2007 and 2008: the monarchy was formally abolished in 2008, and the country became a federal democratic republic, the same restructuring that eventually produced the seven provinces covered elsewhere on this site.
Where you'll actually hear it
Beyond the obvious occasions, national holidays, official state functions, international sporting events where Nepal is represented, the anthem is also a fixture of ordinary school mornings, where many Nepali schools open the day with a group singing of "Sayaun Thunga Phulka" as part of assembly, and government offices and public events routinely play or sing it to open proceedings. It's less a once-a-year ceremonial piece and more a background constant, which is part of why the lyrics tend to be so widely known even among people who couldn't name who wrote them.
Where to listen
The Nagarik Nepal app includes a full player for the anthem with synced lyrics in Nepali, plus background playback so it keeps going if you lock your phone or switch apps, a small detail that took a specific Android permission to get right and one we've written about separately for anyone curious about the technical side.
Listen to the full anthem with lyrics, offline, in the Nagarik Nepal app.
Join the WaitlistFor a fuller historical account, including the anthem selection process, Wikipedia's Sayaun Thunga Phulka entry has additional detail and citations worth reading.