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The Mughal Empire had a number of imperial flags and standards. The principal imperial standard of the Mughals was known as the alam (Alam علم). It was primarily moss green. It displayed a lion and sun (Shir-u-khurshid شیر و خورشید) facing the hoist of the flag. The Mughals traced their use of the alam back to Timur.
The imperial standard was displayed to the right of the throne and also at the entrance of the Emperor's encampment and in front of the emperor during military marches.
According to the Ain-i-Akbari, during Akbar's reign, whenever the emperor rode out, not less than five alams were carried along with the qur (a collection of flags and other insignia) wrapped up in scarlet cloth bags. They were unfurled on the days of festivity, and in battle. Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, who came during the reign of Jahangir, described in his Voyage to East-India (1655) that the royal standard, made of silk, with a crouching lion shadowing part of the body of the sun inscribed on it, was carried on an elephant whenever the emperor travelled.
A painting by Payag in a manuscript of the Padshahnama, a chronicle on Shah Jahan's reign, preserved in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle depicted the Mughal standards as the scarlet pennons with green borders with a passant lion and rising sun behind it. Another painting in the same manuscript depicted the Mughal standards having green fields with a couchant lion and rising sun behind it.