Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
pali calligraphy for tattoos
hiya folks. i've been planning to get a tattoo of a few words in pali. obviously, i want to make sure i get the translations right and provide the artist with accurate calligraphy. can anyone help me out or point me in the right direction? metta, scott
0
Comments
I was going to suggest you post a request for translation at e-sangha's Pali forum - but not mention it was for a tattoo.
I guess you found that out for yourself.
The Worst Horse has a big Dharma tattoo archive:
http://www.theworsthorse.net/bodyvows3/bodyvows3.html
Umm... I know how to write Buddha Dharma Sangha in Chinese, but not Pali. Sorry.
PS- 佛 法 僧(fo2) (fa3) (seng1)
I believe Tao is 道(dao4)
बुद्ध
धम्म
संघ
but I'm not sure. I can't tell Pali from Sanskrit.
Pally
"Pali's written in a whole mess of different writing systems: Most people who read Pali today are reading it in Roman script, Thai, Burmese, Khmer, or Sinhala, tho other scripts are & have been used. I don't know what the latest research on the earliest writing system for Pali suggests, but I believe we understand Pali to have been written around the same time as the first inscriptions in the Brahmi script. Which script are you planning to use for your tattoo?"-B
> thanks for getting back, bob. i've received some pretty strange replies... i'd like to find the script for the earliest known buddhist texts. i was looking for "buddha, dharma, sangha."-S
"You probably want Brahmi, then, which is actually kind of clunky looking. If you want something attractive & old-fashioned looking, you might try the Lanna script or Khmer. (Also, if you want it in Pali, rather than Sanskrit, you'll want dhamma, not dharma.)-B
Here is a site where you can preview the alphabets of the various scripts in which Pali is, or has been, written. As for the script in which the earilest Buddhist texts are written, the earilest that has been discovered thus far is Kharosthi. Happy hunting.
Jason
Wow that Tara tattoo is beautiful. I don't see myself getting any tattoos (I'm too fickle--I may seriously regret it in a few years) but if I did . . .
My first advice is to find a tattoo artist who is sober at the time and who does not have too wicked a sense of humour.
And, above all, and with all respect to those who have said otherwise, remember that a tattoo is not permanent. It will only last as long as your skin does.
Have fun.
Noah Levine's Dharma Punx forum: http://www.dharmapunx.com/msg/default.asp has a couple of threads about tattoos. Followed a link from there to a website that does custom translation for tattoos (don't know how much they charge): http://www.tattoos-by-design.co.uk/ They don't have Brahmi listed though.
A few years ago I was convinced I wanted a crescent moon (goddess smbol) tattoo but my husband said he would leave me if I did so.
I am so glad he said that because my feelings have changed and I no longer feel I have to wear a label of any sort, so I would have regretted it
and hi jacx... read the levine book not too long ago. related to so much of it. he's got a five-day coming up at spirit rock that i might go to. i've been in touch with the artist he used (eddy d), but he can't really help me with translation. got some academicish help from pali yahoo group, tho.
in the end, i'm in no rush... just gathering info. elohim's link was very helpful (thanks elohim!). i'm still trying to figure out which is the script for the oldest known pali cannon/sutra texts. then i can get a translator involved...
When all said and done, it's your body and entirely up to you what you do with it.
If that comes up short, come back here and tell.
I got 8 of them.
Palzang
So....?
What would that be in Pali script?
Ouch!! That is a sensitive area.
ทุกฺขํ อริยสจฺจํ
Noble Truth of Suffering.
Dukkhaṃ Ariyasaccaṃ
ทุกฺขสมุทโย อริยสจฺจํ
Noble Truth of the cause of suffering.
Dukkhasamudayo Ariyasaccaṃ
ทุกฺขนิโรโธ อริยสจฺจํ
Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering.
Dukkhanirodho Ariyasaccaṃ
ทุกฺขนิโรธคามินี ปฏิปทา อริยสจฺจํ
Dukkhanirodhagāminīpaṭipadā Ariyasaccaṃ
the way leading to the cessation of dukkha
For scotta:
Buddha
Thai: พระพุทธ
Pali: พุทฺธ
Dhamma
Thai: พระธรรม
Pali: ธมฺม
Sangha
Thai: พระสงฆ์
Pali: สงฺฆ
I updated it today 05.03.2008 Had a correction done
With best regards and good luck
I don't know how to make the script bigger, but if you copy and paste it into excel or so for the tattoer.
In other scripts like Brahmi ot Karoshti I don't have it, I am sorry
more from wikipedia on those first known buddist manuscripts:
"The British Library Collection
In 1994 the British Library acquired a group of some eighty Gandharan manuscript fragments from the first half of the first century. They were written on birch bark and stored in clay jars, which preserved them. They are thought to have been found in eastern Afghanistan (Bamiyan, Jalalabad, Hadda, which were part of Gandhara), and the clay jars were buried in ancient monasteries. A team has been at work, trying to decipher the manuscript: three volumes have appeared. The manuscripts ware written in Gāndhārī using the Kharoṣṭhī script, and are therefore sometimes also called the Kharosthi Manuscripts.
The collection is composed of a diversity of texts: a Dhammapada, discourses of Buddha (for example the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra), Avadanas and Purvayogas, commentaries and Abhidharma texts.
There is evidence to suggest that these texts may belong to the Dharmaguptaka school, an offshoot of the Theravadins (Salomon 2000, p.5). There is an inscription on a jar to that school, and there is some textual evidence as well. On a semi-related point, the Gandhāran text of the Rhinoceros Sutra contains what may be a polemic against the Mahāyāna. (Salomon, 2000, p. 127)"
re brahmi...
"The Schøyen collection
The Schøyen collection consists of birch bark, palm leaf and vellum manuscripts. They are thought to have been found in the Bamiyan caves, where refugees were seeking shelter. Most of these manuscripts were bought by a Norwegian collector, named Martin Schøyen, while smaller quantities are in possession of Japanese collectors. These manuscripts date from the second to the eighth century AD.
The Schøyen collection includes fragments of canonical Suttas, Abhidharma, Vinaya and Mahayana texts. Most of these manuscripts are written in the Brahmi scripts, while a small portion is written in Gandhari/Karoshthi script
i know wikipedia isn't always the best source, and i'm certainly no expert. i'm not sure how far these texts are "removed" from the pali oral tradition. i understand that the pali canon/tipitaka was first written down during the first fourth buddhist council (first century bce). i also understand that this council was held in sri lanka. so i assume these first writings were in a sri lankan text. but i haven't heard of any of these texts remaining - as opposed to the gandhāran texts mentioned above, some of which date back to "the first half of the first century." so were talking about existing scripts that date to within 100-200 years of the council.
i guess my task now is to find and choose either early sri lankan script (which would have likely been used during the council), or Kharoṣṭhī as it was ued in those earliest known manuscripts. like i said, very determined to get this right before i go under the needle!
metta, s