[INDOLOGY] Tattoo design

Elliot Stern emstern1948 at gmail.com
Tue Apr 12 22:13:13 UTC 2022


Small correction: tat tvam āsa would mean ’that was you’.

> On Apr 12, 2022, at 6:00 PM, Elliot Stern <emstern1948 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Valerie,
> 
> I don’t have anything to say at the moment about the yantra, but I expect the son either meant to write tat tvam asi ’you are that' but wrote instead tat tvam āsa ‘you were that’, or he deliberately wrote tat tvam āsa. In this familiar saying tat tvam asi (Chāndogya Upaniṣat 6.8.7), tat means sat or brahman.
> 
> Elliot M. Stern
> 552 South 48th Street
> Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
> emstern1948 at gmail.com <mailto:emstern1948 at gmail.com>
> 267-240-8418
>  
>> On Apr 12, 2022, at 4:19 PM, Valerie Roebuck via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear indology list
>> 
>> Could you please advise Dr Jackie Hirst about the tattoo design shown in the attached picture? 
>> 
>> She says: ‘It is a sketch, now in the possession of a father, that was found in the effects of his son, a young man who died tragically recently, and the family are keen to know what it means. He was interested in the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā amongst other things and frequently sketched lotuses. Would anyone be able to shed more light on this as a particular (basic indication of a) yantra and/or on the particular (mainly nāgarī) characters which do not seem to make sense as a word/words - could they be (an attempt to indicate) specific individual seed mantras? or?  If anyone has any further ideas, and how to convey them sensitively to the family, please reply to the list and/or to Jackie direct (jacqueline.hirst at manchester.ac.uk <mailto:jacqueline.hirst at manchester.ac.uk> - Honorary Research Fellow South Asian Studies).  With many thanks.'
>> 
>> Below is a Dropbox link to the design in question. It’s shared with the permission of the family.
>> 
>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/ic44yzw6mfp1jo1/Brett%20Holscher%20tattoo%20picture.jpg?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/ic44yzw6mfp1jo1/Brett%20Holscher%20tattoo%20picture.jpg?dl=0>
>> 
>> Valerie J Roebuck
>> Manchester, UK
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Elliot M. Stern
552 South 48th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
emstern1948 at gmail.com
267-240-8418



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