What is the name of the blue wheel at the center of India’s national flag?

The blue wheel at the center of India’s national flag is the Ashoka Chakra.

The Ashoka Chakra is a navy-blue wheel with 24 spokes. It appears in the center of the white horizontal band between saffron above and green below. The wheel is based on the Dharma Chakra associated with the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath, an ancient monument that also influenced India’s state emblem.

India adopted the tricolour on 22 July 1947, shortly before independence. The flag’s saffron, white, and green bands are commonly explained through ideas including courage, truth, peace, and fertility or growth, while the wheel represents motion, law, and righteous conduct.

The Ashoka Chakra replaced the spinning wheel associated with the earlier Congress flag design. A frequent mistake is to call it simply a “blue circle”; its official symbolism and 24 spokes make it a wheel, not a plain disc. The 24 spokes are often linked with the hours of a day.