The colors of the Monaco flag are exactly the same as those of Indonesia, and they used it before the Indonesian nation-state was born. However, historically, Majapahit in Indonesia had already used red and white with nine horizontal red and white stripes.
This flag is still used today on the banner of the Majapahit Palace in Jakarta and as the jack of the Indonesian Navy. The meaning of Majapahit's red and white in Nusantara-Austronesian cosmology is: red = blood / courage / earth / body, and white = bone / purity / sky / soul.
Thus, it has a philosophical meaning of the unity of body and soul, sacred courage, and the integrity of human life. In ancient Javanese philosophy, red = mother (womb) and white = father (seed), symbolizing the birth and life of the Indonesian nation and Nusantara.
Symbolically, in the Javanese-Indonesian-Nusantara tradition, begining = white (origin of the spirit) and ending = red (return to earth). The Majapahit banner is red at the beginning and red at the end.
Its meaning is worldly power (cakravartin), namely sovereignty over the Indonesian archipelago, a maritime kingdom (blood-soil), and the dominance of the body over asceticism. The cultural and economic realities, as well as the architectural beauty of the Majapahit palace and kingdom, once captivated a Westerner named Odorico da Pordenone (1286-1331).
He was an Italian Franciscan monk renowned as a European explorer, first visiting East and Southeast Asia in the early 14th century—long before the era of the colonial explorer Vasco da Gama. In his early 14th-century travel report (Itinerarium), he described how a European viewed the Indonesian archipelago during the reign of Majapahit's second king, Jayanegara.
Odorico arrived in a world he considered a "magical and wealthy" kingdom that seemed to him more advanced than Europe. In his stories, Odorico wrote of the incredibly fertile lands of Majapahit, abundant fruit, rich crops, and prosperous people, describing the region as almost "paradise on earth."
